christians scare me

[Alex Bragi]

every single theist irrespective of his religious stream, be it monotheistic islam and christianity or sikhism or polythiestic hellenism or paganistic patheistic Hinduism and Jainism or agnostic budhism, is a serious danger against humanity.
Anyways, that is a different issue, going a little away from the original thread discussion going on, I have a list of some ten questions which every *intelligent theist should try to answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDHJ4...eature=related
Enjoy the questionaire.

Well, I think that link is simply atheist propaganda. No, I don’t have the answers to those very perplexing questions. But, of course, answers aren't what atheist are looking for when they ask them, are they?

On the flip side can an atheist really fully explain faith healing, how the universe began and how it will end (e.i. infinity), exactly what happens to our energy when it leaves our bodies, and all those other unanswered questions?

What always intrigues with these kinds of discussions/debates is that the very thing theists and atheists have in common is they’re dogged believe that they are so right and the other side is so wrong.

[Thorne]

Well, I think that link is simply atheist propaganda. No, I don’t have the answers to those very perplexing questions. But, of course, answers aren't what atheist are looking for when they ask them, are they?

I agree with you here, Alex. The "conclusions" arrived at by the narrator there were as fallacious and idiotic as those of the religions he was mocking. You could just as easily replace his "God is imaginary" argument with, "God is an iguana: he likes bugs, not people!"

On the flip side can an atheist really fully explain faith healing, how the universe began and how it will end (e.i. infinity), exactly what happens to our energy when it leaves our bodies, and all those other unanswered questions?

Growing up Roman Catholic I was always told the God is infinite, no beginning and no end. A nice, simple way to avoid figuring out where he came from in my mind. But if God can be infinite, why can't the universe? Why does it have to have a beginning and an end?

What always intrigues with these kinds of discussions/debates is that the very thing theists and atheists have in common is they’re dogged believe that they are so right and the other side is so wrong.

Exactly! These hard-core atheists are as dogged and dogmatic in their disbelief as the theists are in their belief! It's just religion in another guise.

[MissElizabeth87]

Thorne:

just religion in another guise.

I have been saying this for years!!!

And I totally agree... fundamentalists are scary, no matter what religion they are. This is how we get Islamic Terrorists, and crazy idiots like the "christians" who are on TV all the time making such bad names for the rest of us.

[TomOfSweden]

On the flip side can an atheist really fully explain faith healing, how the universe began and how it will end (e.i. infinity), exactly what happens to our energy when it leaves our bodies, and all those other unanswered questions?

What always intrigues with these kinds of discussions/debates is that the very thing theists and atheists have in common is they’re dogged believe that they are so right and the other side is so wrong.

I think you've fallen into the Creationist trap. Creationist debates tend to slide into whether or not atheism is just another religious faith and reduce it to that. As if it is two different sides debating meta-physics.

The difference is that atheism doesn't make claims of the sort and can't. It's not what atheism is. Atheism is simply the rejection of one particular religious theory. Usually Christianity in these western parts. A Christian is per definition an atheist as far as Islam is concerned. Atheism is as much a religion as not playing tennis is a sport.

But let's say atheism gets to represent the rejection of all religions. It's a huge leap to say that an atheist by default prays at the altar of science. Believing in specific scientific theories is a question of faith, and accepting scientific evidence above other types of evidence is very much a question of faith. There's no breaking the atheistic creed by believing in faith healing, unicorns and the theory of relativity... all at the same time. That's not what it means. Atheists can quite cheerfully reject both religion and all science.

But let's go along even with this. Let's for sake of argument say that being an atheist means that one thinks science is the measure of all truth. I doubt many atheists would agree, but just for the sake of it, let's do it. How does the fact that they can't explain faith healing or the origins of our universe give an ounce of credibility to any non-scientific theory? Stuff we don't know... we don't know. We can't really say anything more than that.

I hope I've managed to kill off any ideas of that atheism and theism are some kinds of binary sides to chose between. It's much more complicated than that. There's either belief systems which have complete theories of everything, (religious or not) and belief systems that accept that we don't know everything to draw such conclusions, (religious or not).

Discussions like this tend to limp along where theists and atheists attack the dumbest and most superficial ideas from each group and both sides think the other is missing the point. Those discussions doesn't go anywhere and are hardly helpful. Please guys, lets avoid it. Discussions like this always need to get broken down into specific discreet areas. Like, did Johnsson's kid get better because of a miracle, or was it just chemistry? ...or how do we know the Bible is the word of God?