Thunda Wrote:Would you care to explain your views on this slightly more thoroughly? If not a supernatural being, then what?

Quantact Wrote:What I find curious about atheism is that you have this giant universe, we don't even know if it's infinite or what lies beyond it, we don't know for sure what created it, we don't know what's in it, whether we're the only intelligent life. We don't know a lot about our own world, including our own bodies and brain. We don't know how out of nothingness life and intelligent life developed into relative equilibrium.

But we DO know 100% that a great being did NOT create all of it, and we DO know 100% for sure that such a being cannot exist.

Sounds like another religion to me. No empirical proof, just conjecture and faith.

I personally don't get into these arguments because what you believe is up to you. One of my best friends is a bitter atheist, we just don't talk about this stuff. Live and let live; no convincing anyone about this stuff. So, as long as people do not get in my face about my religion, I do not get into theirs in their non-religion.

TehMatt Wrote:Why did something have to create it? Can't things just be infinite? I don't think anything ever formed. You cannot create nor destroy matter (Please don't argue with e=mc^). Period. Everything is conserved. So saying things were created goes against this theory. A well backed theory. That to me proves there is no supernatural being/force.

Have a semi-credible argument to back up there is a higher power? I know I am not a PHD or anything, but hey seems reasonable enough to me.

The "universe" could very well be finite. That I cannot really comment on.

Other life? Sure that is plausible as long as the conditions were right. Not like we are that special.

Quantact Wrote:Sounds like another religion to me. No empirical proof, just conjecture and faith.

SekushiKun Wrote:I'm saying: stop saying we and us. Your anger to their beliefs isn't stemmed from your atheism, but from your own misunderstanding of what faith is. 1 + 1 does not = 3, but that does not rely on faith. Faith is strongly believing in something; It doesn't have to have proof that it is real.

Quantact Wrote:But we DO know 100% that a great being did NOT create all of it, and we DO know 100% for sure that such a being cannot exist.

heronz Wrote:in conclusion:

Atheism is a new religion.

Atheism is NOT Indeed A Civil Rights Issue, rather an political party issue. or If atheism is a Civil rights issue, then in our current society Christianity is the more persecuted of the two and it needs more equality.

Quote:This hasn't really happened since Roman times.

Quote:The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.

Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals.[11][12][13][14] Many Orthodox (along with peoples of other faiths) were also subjected to psychological punishment or torture and mind control experimentation in order to force them give up their religious convictions (see Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union). [12][13][15][16]

It is estimated the some 20 million Christians (18 million Orthodox, 2 million Roman Catholic) died or were interned in gulags under the Soviet regime 2.7 million martyred under Stalin.[17]

Practicing Orthodox Christians were restricted from prominent careers and membership in communist organizations (the party, the Komsomol). Anti-religious pro da was openly sponsored and encouraged by the government, which the Church was not given an opportunity to publicly respond to. The government youth organization, the Komsomol, encouraged its members to vandalize Orthodox Churches and harass worshipers. Seminaries were closed down, and the church was restricted from using the press.

TehMatt Wrote:...but as always there is awlays an exception.

TehMatt Wrote:They have been prosecuted, yes, but not on that large of a scale for the most part. The Soviet Union was against ALL religions anyways not just Christians.

Providence Wrote:And what about the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Holocaust?

Moonlapse Wrote:I would say describing a period where 18 million protestants and two million protestants were either jailed or imprisoned as an "exception" or on a "small scale" is a bit of an understatement. (And the Soviet methods of punishing the faithful, including inprisonment and forced labor in gulags, were just as atrocious as the feeding Christians to the lions in Rome.)By your reasoning you will have to call the spanish inquisition "a small scale exception" in the record of persecution committed by the church as well. More christians were persecuted in the Soviet Union than nonbeleivers that were persecuted in the spanish inquistion.

Quote:Everyone was prosecuted! Not just Christians is what I am saying.

heronz Wrote:along with that. in the media you can see far more ridicule of christians than any other 'religion.' in fact anything non-christian is idolize one can argue.

buddism/hinduism->trendy/hip (not that they're the same-rather they have the same reactions)
muslim->to be understood/ tolerated
atheism->the path to a new era of learning / science
satanism/witchcraft->forbidden/exotic/fun

judaism-> neutral/ people neither talk bad or good about it =T.

christianity-> supernatural/ unscientific/ dorkish/ prude/ intolerant/ liars/ ignorant/ scammers/ to be enlightened.

not all persecution has to be physical as hitting, jailings, or execution (though christians do go through that). what people gather on religious topics is usually, if not completely, based of media - movies, news, tv. <--this is evidently more so in US actually than other 'tolerant' nations.