Chief Walkin Eagle
Well-Known Member
wtf is a foxhole? lol
Atheists
- Thread starter Chief Walkin Eagle
- Start date
DoctorSmoke
Active Member
i know i remember asking my grandfather before he died "who made god", because he told me god made everything. i was in kindergarden back then when he died so i could have been younger (5 yo or younger) when i asked him. basically as soon as i could comprehend the idea of god i questioned it, or asked a whole bunch of questions and didnt understand the answers (how could god make himself). i guess i dont have the genetics to believe in something like god if i wasnt convinced when i was 4-5yo.
DoctorSmoke
Active Member
its not from lack of trying as i went to catholic school from kindergarden to gr3, then catholic school for a while in gr8 in ontario. and church on sunday when i was a kid. went to a few catholic schools. religious ppl all around me. idk...
Vindicated
Well-Known Member
The foxhole line was an old argument, meaning when you face death, like soldiers in the heat of the war, you will pray that god will help you. It's a little insulting because it assumes that a person has to believe in their god no matter what.
I've faced death before a lot of times. Close calls with drugs, nearly falling off a cliff, countless times almost getting hit in a car, and the most recent was when I was drunk and driving 130+ on the freeway, when I spun out and crashed into a wall. Not sure how I survived, but everything was in slow motion. Point being, none of those experiences made me look to God. I never had that foxhole moment. I always think, shit I hope I this isn't the end, then I freeze, and my mind goes silent.
A person's belief is a product of upbringing. If you take a Buddhist monk and put a gun to their head, do you honestly think they're going to suddenly believe in jesus? No! Of course not. And no reasonable person would think otherwise.
I personally know of two types of atheists. Strong and soft atheists. A strong atheist is a person who cannot fathom a deity as real. It's like trying to convince a Christian to believe in Thor. It's just not going to happen without some crazy brain washing. A soft atheist is a person who looks at their life, questions god or becomes angry towards god and decides they don't want to believe anymore. This is more common. Lots of people, even christians will go through this phase at least once in their life. A women who has an abortion, a father who loses their child, a person who lives through genocide or terrorism could easily be lead to question their faith. However it's usually short lived. Eventually the person will stop being mad at god and start to believe again. A fence sitter, I mean an agnostic, is a person who refuses to take a position. They either use arguments like it's impossible to know or they simply don't care either way. However in the end, eventually the agnostic leans more one way or the other. Kind of like how some people are bi-sexual. I don't care if you eat pussy, if you suck dick your still gay. Same thing with agnostic. If you don't accept a god as real or logical, to me your an atheist.
I am a strong atheist. I've tried for years to believe because I like the idea of heaven and god, but I'm a very logical thinker. Its difficult for me to accept. I've come to conclude that I just have a different belief and it's at my very core that it's not going to change unless something very dramatic, like jesus himself appearing before me, will change. I don't hate god, I'm not angry towards any religion. It's just not my belief. My moral compass comes not from the bible, but common sense. When I need extra guidance as to what is right I turn to the philosophy of ethics, such as what Emmanuel Kant teaches. However, I accept even these systems are flawed. Kant (and christians) have a hard time with the holocoaust dilemma.
Imagine for a moment you're a German during WWII. Your best friend and their family, that you've know all your life come knocking at your door. They are jews and plead for help. They ask you to hide them because the Nazis are coming. Your inner moral compass says the right thing to do is to hide them, but then the Nazis come and ask if they are there. Telling a lie is wrong, but somehow in this case, it seems right. Yet the Bible, Kant, and countless other systems of ethics have a hard time with this. When does one wrong cancel out another? Only you can decide this.
I've faced death before a lot of times. Close calls with drugs, nearly falling off a cliff, countless times almost getting hit in a car, and the most recent was when I was drunk and driving 130+ on the freeway, when I spun out and crashed into a wall. Not sure how I survived, but everything was in slow motion. Point being, none of those experiences made me look to God. I never had that foxhole moment. I always think, shit I hope I this isn't the end, then I freeze, and my mind goes silent.
A person's belief is a product of upbringing. If you take a Buddhist monk and put a gun to their head, do you honestly think they're going to suddenly believe in jesus? No! Of course not. And no reasonable person would think otherwise.
I personally know of two types of atheists. Strong and soft atheists. A strong atheist is a person who cannot fathom a deity as real. It's like trying to convince a Christian to believe in Thor. It's just not going to happen without some crazy brain washing. A soft atheist is a person who looks at their life, questions god or becomes angry towards god and decides they don't want to believe anymore. This is more common. Lots of people, even christians will go through this phase at least once in their life. A women who has an abortion, a father who loses their child, a person who lives through genocide or terrorism could easily be lead to question their faith. However it's usually short lived. Eventually the person will stop being mad at god and start to believe again. A fence sitter, I mean an agnostic, is a person who refuses to take a position. They either use arguments like it's impossible to know or they simply don't care either way. However in the end, eventually the agnostic leans more one way or the other. Kind of like how some people are bi-sexual. I don't care if you eat pussy, if you suck dick your still gay. Same thing with agnostic. If you don't accept a god as real or logical, to me your an atheist.
I am a strong atheist. I've tried for years to believe because I like the idea of heaven and god, but I'm a very logical thinker. Its difficult for me to accept. I've come to conclude that I just have a different belief and it's at my very core that it's not going to change unless something very dramatic, like jesus himself appearing before me, will change. I don't hate god, I'm not angry towards any religion. It's just not my belief. My moral compass comes not from the bible, but common sense. When I need extra guidance as to what is right I turn to the philosophy of ethics, such as what Emmanuel Kant teaches. However, I accept even these systems are flawed. Kant (and christians) have a hard time with the holocoaust dilemma.
Imagine for a moment you're a German during WWII. Your best friend and their family, that you've know all your life come knocking at your door. They are jews and plead for help. They ask you to hide them because the Nazis are coming. Your inner moral compass says the right thing to do is to hide them, but then the Nazis come and ask if they are there. Telling a lie is wrong, but somehow in this case, it seems right. Yet the Bible, Kant, and countless other systems of ethics have a hard time with this. When does one wrong cancel out another? Only you can decide this.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
You can call yourself agnostic if you want, no need to feel defensive. We're just pointing out that, unless we are privy to whats in your head, hearing that your agnostic doesn't tell us much.
I could believe that the universe obviously had a creator as evident by design, and yet feel that none of the world's religions do anything to help us know that creator. In this case I would be an agnostic believer.
Anything that doesn't entail theism, agnostic or not, is atheism. There is no middle ground. The theist has defined atheism in such a way that it includes anything that isn't their side of the fence, which includes the middle. The theist is the one who cries atheism, without the theist, atheists wouldn't exist. The prefix 'a' meaning not, anything that is not belief in a higher power, is not-theism, undecided or not.
The theist is not happy to wait until you find proof before he calls you an atheist. Rejection of his claim/proof is enough.
In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
―
Sam Harris―
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
[video=youtube;swkAGExZCII]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkAGExZCII[/video]
DreamTime
Member
How were you able to determine that all agnostics don't believe?
mindphuk
Well-Known Member
the prefix also means "lack of", "without", or "absence of" such as amoral does not literally mean 'not moral' which in my mind can be interpreted as immoral, but lack of morality in general much like atheism is 'without any theistic belief.'
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
I wonder if what is popularly termed the atheist stance isn't in fact antitheist. cn
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
That's not the truth at all. Prove it.
cannofbliss
Well-Known Member
wow... i thought that you were either incredibly fucking stupid, far gone, or purposefully ignorant, or just plain lost all sense of reality...
that is until i read the above post you made on this thread... just by your attempts to classify why people dont believe in any supernatural being...
i stand corrected... because of your "posts" i will "renounce" my abhorrently "sinful" ways, and turn to jesus...
i will buy into the legal trap that i was "born" an evil person and that the only way i can ever "redeem" myself is to accept and relinquish my freedoms and rights over to "a higher authority"...
so i can be a good little sheep and have whomever "claims" to be in authority due to "divine right" can violently oppress me and break my will to live, so that way their sick and megalomaniacal will be done...
wtf... seriously... of course "god" exists... it was and always will be a thought and idea, derived from as a byproduct of typical humanistic/animalistic behavior that there is "something greater" than the natural...
DoctorSmoke
Active Member
we are atheists because we dont buy into the BS we were born into. some ppl just dont believe religion, my guess is genetics.
SirLancelot
Active Member
You know I used to be a hardcore athiest the one thing that has always stuck with me was an argument someone brought up too me one time, I believe the "Kalam argument?"
"
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause
- The universe began to exist
- Therefore, the universe has a cause
- Something cannot come into being from nothing
- If things really could come into being uncaused out of nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything and everything do not come into existence uncaused from nothing.
- The first premise is constantly confirmed in our experience.
As well as the Fine-Tuning argument... Just thought I'd share
Doer
Well-Known Member
But this theological perspective is what has to be bought on faith. It's the attribution of deity or Design through human logic. Why do things need a cause to exist? And a bit of hubris in the idea that we have to understand it at all. And therefore we can't get used to it, but it is truly inexplicable.
SirLancelot
Active Member
I agree why couldn't it just happen by chance, but then I think dude are we really that lucky? Do humans really deserve this 1 in a 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999(it's much bigger number)chance that everything would fall into place so perfectly in the universe to support human life.
Doer
Well-Known Member
All I know is there ain't no atheists in a foxhole and thats the truth.
You guys know the Tillman Story? Medal of Honor, turned out to be friendly fire. The situation is that he was
murdered on the battlefield. He was a scoffing atheist, by all accounts, walking back to the Humvee in plain
sight, not 100 yrds out.
Killed by the platoon's "preacherman." (no, not the Chaplin) It was such a tense situation, Tillman's buddy eased
off 3-4 yards and knelled down with his hands on his helmet. He says he told Tillman they weren't shitting around,
but Tillman would not kneel. This is the story the family got out of everyone with the Freedom of Information Act
and then cross referencing the highly redacted reports until they were sure who the buddy was and had him verify it.
Then they made a documentary.
So, that proves there are no atheists in the foxhole.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
Although I do understand what you're saying, you may be overstating it a bit. Most of the universe will not support life of any kind. The earth itself was very hostile to life for a very long time, and much of it still is today. If the goal was human life, it sure seems like a really inefficient plan. I am not sure we can assign the universe one single purpose, and certainly that purpose can't be human existence.
SirLancelot
Active Member
ah touche! maybe the goal isn't human life in particular but life in general including bacterias and other living single celled organisms. I think there's a general consensus among astrologists that there's billions of solar systems similar to ours that are capable of supporting life this is what I meant by the universe supporting human life 
Doer
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, that's playing the numbers game. And the numbers game says it's just as likely that we are truly alone. It's because
in the numbers game, as you are proposing it, all probabilities are equally possible, including it's just us. Need more data.
The numbers game is often a reason given that it has to be Intelligently Designed. But, again, wiithout more data, it could
just as easily be one of the myriad of outcomes. All the Constants aligning, all the Fine Tuned arguments are at the moment
specious, at best. Things don't exist because of cause. That's faith.
in the numbers game, as you are proposing it, all probabilities are equally possible, including it's just us. Need more data.
The numbers game is often a reason given that it has to be Intelligently Designed. But, again, wiithout more data, it could
just as easily be one of the myriad of outcomes. All the Constants aligning, all the Fine Tuned arguments are at the moment
specious, at best. Things don't exist because of cause. That's faith.