Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
You reject blind faith and/or revelation, although all religious faith is based on either or both of those.
Yes, I do. Without evidence, neither of them is worth the paper they are printed on.

an eternal creator who is not bound by the laws of science seems more plausible (!) than an inconceivably large amount of energy and mass erupting out of nothing at all at some point in the past, for no evident reason, when that flies in the face of all laws of science as we know them.
Just HOW is it more plausible? If you cannot imagine an infinite universe, which obeys all the laws of nature, how can postulating an infinite being, who does NOT obey all the laws of nature, seem more plausible? And just because we don't know how the universe began doesn't mean that some supernatural being did it.

If an atheist claims rational analysis as the bedrock of his position, how does he explain spontaneous creation?
I don't explain it. I leave that to the scientists who study the universe. They are constantly coming up with new theories, and testing them, seeking data to support, or deny, them. How much testing can we do on a god? Where is the data to support that hypothesis? Again, a lack of knowledge or understanding does not automatically mean god.

We're back to the faith/revelation v evidence argument again.
It's the only real argument, after all. Science has evidence. Faith does not.

Theories! Thought experiments and maths only. What is more, the religions have a complete answer!
No! Theories are more than just thought experiments. Sure, you can hypothesize just about anything, and claim it to be true. But without data to support it, without evidence to show it explains the universe as we know it, it's nothing more than ... religion. Any answer that religion can provide is only imaginary. They have no evidence for an afterlife, they have no evidence for their gods, they have no evidence for heavens or hells. Anyone can make claims, for anything at all. They can answer all the questions in the world if they wish. Without proof, without evidence, it's no better than fiction. Hell, it IS fiction.

God is eternal - came from nowhere we can comprehend, and not created. If an atheist can accept an uncaused cause leading to the creation of the universe, why can not a god also be uncaused?
I do not accept an uncaused cause, but an unknown cause. We know the universe exists, though. We can see it, measure it, feel it around us. Not so gods.

And if a theist can accept an eternal god, why can't he accept an eternal universe? Why do you assume the universe had a beginning? Yes, our minds are more comfortable thinking that there is a beginning and an end, and it's quite probable that the universe as we know it had a beginning and will have an end. Perhaps, some umpteen quadrillion eons from now all of the universe as we know it will be dark and dead, slowly mixing, gradually coming together, until it ultimately collapses back into a singularity and explodes once again. After all, as far as we know energy cannot be destroyed, so all of the energy being dispersed throughout the universe will exist forever, as near as we can tell. Who can say that this energy won't eventually combine back to form matter once again? All without gods.

Yes, indifference. Otherwise he would be unjustly favouring individuals, and we all know, God is just.
And yet God, as defined in the holy books of the theists, always seems to favor a particular group. The Hebrew God favored the Jews. The Islamic God favors the Muslims. The Christian God(s) favors (a particular brand of) Christians.

That view, which I see as a mixture of paranoia and exaggeration worthy of a tipsy Orangeman on 12th July can be turned on its head;
I suggest you look into what's currently happening in American politics, thanks to religious fanatics. Abortion laws being gutted (because women really aren't smart enough to control their own bodies, don't you know), creationism being touted as a science, and one superior to evolution. Elected officials openly promoting Christianity over any other religion! ("On the day of his swearing-in, Alabama Republican Gov. Robert J. Bentley raised concern among the state's non-Christians by declaring that people who had not accepted Jesus Christ were not his brothers and sisters.") Does that sound like paranoia or exaggeration to you?

if you stop religions proselytising, you cut of their life blood and will kill them all off.
That works for me! But I didn't SAY stop them from proselytizing. But it has no place in schools, no place in the science class, and no place in politics.

Only the extreme religions deny the value and validity of science. Most religions embrace science, knowing it is limited to describing the natural world. Proof of god goes beyond science.
Granted. I agree that it is currently the extremists who are the major offenders. But it's taken the Catholic Church nearly 2000 years to admit that. It took them 600 years before they finally admitted that Galileo was right. The Church has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the real world, but don't for one minute think that they wouldn't gladly return us to the dark ages when the Church was paramount, ruling over kings and peasants alike. And Islam is right there with them. The only science they will ever truly accept is that science which doesn't contradict their dogma and holy books.

in fact, religion is about explaining life and giving it meaning.
I disagree. Religion is about explaining the unknown and making people feel better about it. If the priest tells you that throwing your virgin daughter into the volcano will keep it from erupting and destroying the village's crops, you'll tend to feel better when the volcano doesn't erupt. Until it finally does, of course. And when you are staggering away from the devastation, clinging to the few meager possessions you have saved, would you mourn the wasted life you tossed down the hole? Or will you listen to that priest as he "explains" that some promiscuous slut is a witch and has to be burned at the stake to appease the god?

And this is why religion and science cannot mix. Because science helps to remove the mystery. The erupting volcano is no longer a sign of an angry god, but a simple, natural event that happens for no reason at all. But the priests will manage to come up with some new reason to keep donating your money, to keep sacrificing those virgins, to keep your wives barefoot and pregnant, because they're only women and they deserve it.

Cynical individuals have bent religion to their own agendas, and they cannot be regarded as religious at all.
What is religion if not the teachings of those self-same individuals? I hear that excuse all the time: "It's not religion that's wrong, it's the people who pervert it." But a religion does not exist independent of people. When the last human disappears from the planet, there will not be some great, ugly lump of religion left behind, moldering, waiting for someone to come along and kick it back to life.

The people who make up a religious organization, from the top man down to the lowest parishioner, ARE that religion. It's the top men (it almost always seems to be men, after all) who espouse the dogma, who send down their pronouncements, revealed to them by God. And it's the little men and women who accept these pronouncements, believing that some posturing con artist is really in communication with God. THAT is religion.

So yes, it can be, and has been, twisted and broken by selfish, greedy men. But the parishioner goes right on believing those men! Oh, some will call bullshit and leave that Church. Most will likely latch onto another Church, one which is more in line with their own beliefs. Some may, like me, realize that they are all alike down deep, promising everything but delivering nothing but lies and fables.

Look into the horrific damage done by the Catholic Church in Africa with it's stand against condoms. They even lied, claiming that condoms do NOT protect against AIDS. Look at the devastation being wrought on gays in Nigeria(?), supported by homophobic preachers in the US. Are the followers of these men walking away and taking their money with them? Not hardly! They go right on donating to the collection plates, while shaking their heads at those poor misguided souls in Africa.

So don't tell me it's not religion that is bad. Religion is only what its people make it.