sorry im late guys, havent checked here for a while due to the usual 1 vs 1 nature of this area


burden of proof is on the one stating the one that cannot be direclt proven.

ie. i have an invisible dragon that breathes heatless fire in my garage - carl sagan (not real quote, but he wrote a chapter on it)
burden of proof simply means that the religious must prove god to the atheists. or the religious must prove god to the other religious.


you scored.
2/10. try better next time.
besides, agnosticism appeals more to me then hinduism which appeals more to me then "the rest".


australia is still a predominately christian country, i grew up in school surrounded by christianity, it didnt take hold. my best friend in primary school was christian. duffman, a friend i see everyday is christian. and yet, i dont choose to be atheist for these reasons. please dont put it down to "trendy"


my colour D: <


:O YOUR CATHOLIC.
:3

was wondering about your denomination.

since no one else here is buddhist or hindu or shintaoist or... you get my point. so here. christianity vs atheism

i am curious with philosophy and everything that organised religion has thrown at the world has been rebutted and refuted.
god works in mysterious ways eh?
occams razor is a powerful tool :3
there is a bike in my garage
there is a bike with an undetectable pony in my garage.
:3

So ducky, u agree with me then
?

more so disagree with the points he made... 2/10 correct. with only 1 being mostly correct... where do you get that stuff?

who? Dlagahah? no idea. But as I said, a lot of Atheists are Atheists because they simply believe that if they cannot see/feel it, it does not exist. Am I on the mark there?

its not just one issue or focal point that results in an atheist. just like even with a catholic upbringing does not always result in a devout catholic.

there are several reasons why.

first and foremost is that i was not raised with religion. i was often surrounded by religion but never raised with it. and after that it was predominately agnostic because seriously. i was told when i was 6/7 that i would burn for eternity. but the traditions of christianities and the various branches meant i couldnt pick and since my family was atheist (apart from buddhist grandparents i never see) i decided to sit on the fence. this was the case until roughly when i was 13/14. i just learnt more and couldnt see religion as a part of my life. i put more faith in lady luck then some divine being that can fix everything but not right now.

shortly after i first became pretty much completely atheist with very little thought for the supernatural beings, i began internet debates which led to research which led to me taking philosophy in year 9 (teacher was a catholic priest turned atheist after he quite simply "stopped" believing. funny guy, sad he left the school for university lecturer, at least he gets paid now ) all these simply resulted in more arguments against then for. this year i went onto facebook discussion boards and basically trolled fundamentalists for fun. its disappointing meeting adults that have less IQ then room temperature.
not because of me, but more militant atheists that swore more, all discussion boards regarding religion that had been flagged were completely removed from facebook.
before then, i occasionally sign up to those HARDCORE religion sites and just look, read and laugh, post 2 pictures and 2 sentences, and wait 20 mins for the ban

to me, there is a difference between the fundamentalist and the more medium follower, but the medium followers follow god more like an agnostic. so... fundamentalists are fun
http://fstdt.com/Top100.aspx
note the language and the adult themes, view at your own discretion.

Chrs used to be mods on the BD forums, he left fstdt for me to lol at

anyways, thats where i came from. scared shutless from a young age but not religious. eventually taking on a role of semi militant atheist which you need to take to have an opinion heard.

Mr, Ducky.

Let me give you an education:

Materialism is not the pursuit of material goods:
Materialism is a philosophy: per wiki:

The philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter, and is considered a form of physicalism. Fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism and to spiritualism.

Secondly, let me teach you the REAL history of Atheism. Since you appear to be so ignorant about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism

If you wanted to make a fun tree about atheism the list of end branches might look like this:

Nihilism, Strong Atheism, Weak Atheism, Pantheism, Agnosticism, Ignostocism, Humanism, Marxism, Scientology, Jediism, Pastafarianism, Brightism, Forteanism, Objectivism, Buddhism (and that's all I can think of off the top of my head)


@Maximillian: In the course of your average day, if you believe in god or not is almost entirely irrelevant.



Lastly, the point of my top 10 list, was to be humorous not serious.
In Amercia, 28% of the population claims to have changed their belief system in one way or another over the course of their lifetime. (44% if you include switching between different forms of protestantism or different sects of the same religion)

Each person has their own personal story of WHY they changed or switched beliefs. Why a person converts to Islam or Buddhism ( a form of atheism) or Hinduism, or Doaism, or Christianity, or Judaism, or Jainism, or Protestantism, or Wicca, or Scientology, or Jehova Witnessess, or Strong Atheism, or Agnosticism, or Sikhism, or weak Atheism, or Victorian Atheism, or New Atheism, or Anti-theism, or Deism, or Pantheism, or Panatheism, or Ignosticism, or Nihilism, etc., all depends on thousands of factors that is different for each person.

There is no real reason why people change their beliefs. Which is why I thought a humorous top 10 list would be the best sort of response.

Oh, and let's be honest here. The Burden of Proof, is always on the "New Idea".

You don't ask people to put the burden of proof on gravitons even though they can't find the graviton particles. The Burden of proof are on the people who say "there are no gravitons"

Deism has a 200,000 year history of ideas and concepts to contend with.
The burden of proof are on the people who in the past 220 years decided that Atheism is the real answer.

People who say that Atheism is the "default position" never looked at the science.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 1&SRETRY=0


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... laims.html

Human beings are born to believe in the non-material, it's genetic.

woulden't say belive in someting non-metarial, but we need answers, when we can't find it we make up our own storys why

Then I'll have to conclude that you didn't read the science on the issue.

This isn't a position based on some philosophy class or my own ideas about this issue. I say that it's genetic because of the science which has confirmed it.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Health ... 469&page=1

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... gests.html

look at the underlines





this are just things they belive, just as my opinions.

actualy what i said and they said point to what i said.

they belive thats why, they find reasons why their view is right just as those who made religion did, yes it's a part of the human nature as i see it, but not directly the religion part.