I came across the image to the right today on the Friendly Atheist. As many people have pointed out, remove the word “magic” and you’re pretty much there. In case you can’t see it (click to enlarge) it says:
Atheism
The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
I’ve tried to come up with my very description of religion, well really Christianity, just to see how it fits in with the description of Atheism. I’ve posted it below.
How would your definition of Religion read?
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Yup! I think you nailed it!
Good one. Now where is that invisible man? I’m still waiting for be shown. Did I mention I’m from the “Show Me” state? 
Of course, even that first image was a response to a picture of a crucified, bloody Jesus captioned:
http://www.voenixrising.com/images/christianity.jpg
Mriana, have you noticed that when people who can see the invisible man he never shows up. Yet they can talk to him at will. Sounds almost like a utility company, the reps claim they have excellent customer service, but you never actually get it…
That’s fantastic Aerik. I thought I’d go down the crude route for mine.
Yes, I have Atheist. Sometimes I wonder if those like say, oh Fat Robotson (Pat Robertson), have Schizophrenia.
Only an fool would say such, without making any deep research for the word Religion. Its Something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience. Atheist: Isn’t the point of conscience to not to believe in God which is called Humanism? Yes it does! Humanism is a Religion. Boy, You Totally Nailed It!
Have you ever seen “The case of Christ”. Lee Strobel, an Atheist journalist, went to the very end to see if Jesus was the Son of God, or an phony. Try to do more research than stalking the same wall shouting “Theres no God”. Matter of fact, we have this in our human nature, we are scared of the unknown. But guess what, That Atheist went to the END! He cracked the code!
ya so the nothing that atheist believe in that nothing exploded into everything and everything arrenged itself perfectly for no reason and made redistributing bits that later became dinosuars. now that makes more sense.
I do agree with The Chritian down at the bottom… so your telling me that NOTHING which started, out made EVERYTHING…. oh yeah… that makes PPEEERRFECTTT sense..
I like the Christian theory a lot better…
IT MAKES MORE SENSE!!
you cannot disprove the existance of god, but you can make a convincing arguement for the existance of “Intelligence beyond our own” or something that transcends the limitations of time and space and holds everything together and brought everything into being. somehow random chance just doesnt explain why carbon levels, gravitational force, the degree of the tilt of the earth, the amount of oxygen, the percent of salt in our oceans and blood streams, the circular (as opposed to eliptical) orbit of earth, hydrogen converting its mass to helium, etc are so so so accurate just so earth can sustain life. if any one of these accurate measurements was just a little bit less accurate, the precision of all the other measurements would not matter. but its because EVERYTHING is just perfect that life exists on earth and that i am able to post this reply right now….. and i suppose the nothing that made nothing is why everything is so perfect?
The Christian, Kheeli - The concept of converting energy into mass is currently being explored and will no doubt be proven through the experiments currently being carried out at CERN using the LHC. The Christian version makes absolutely no sense at all and has no merit.
Underoath - I’m afraid you can’t make a convincing argument for a higher intelligence. And while we can’t currently disprove the existence of God, we can, and are, systematically disproving many of the key facets of religion. Your argument, for example, has fundamental flaws. While life on this planet exists within certain tolerances, we have evolved to live within them. It’s not chance, it’s evolutionary science. You could say that life wouldn’t exist without oxygen, proof that God created us and provided us with something we required. However, life can (and does) exist without oxygen, it’s just not human life. Similarly, humans can only exist within certain temperatures, other forms of life can function outside of those boundaries. So yes, it is remarkable that the sequence of events required to put you in a position to write your reply occurred, but they did. And if some of those events happened slightly differently, you may not be in the position you are now. But no doubt life would continue, albeit in a slightly different form more suited to the environment it exists within. You need to move away from the “I was designed” idea and open your eyes to the world around you, and how we as a species, and other forms of life, have changed and adapted to better suit our environments.
so if amino acids say, magically arranged themselves to make a cell which was magically already “adapted” to the environment to make us, which we are also adapted to the environment, why is this theory not evident anywhere else? say venus? if we can adapt to 23% oxygen, 0.007% of hydrogen converting its mass to helium, 3.4% salt in the oceans, and temperatures close to the freezing/melting point of water around the globe, cant some life get used to the irregularities (of course only irregular to us, im sure life on venus functions just fine cus if there were life it would have sprang out of nowhere already adapted kinda like here)
of course you could also just say we were made unique and have a habitat that was designed uniquely for us. your choice
ever heard of the kalam arguement?
which of the following statements would you disagree with?
1) everything that begins to exist has to have a cause.
2) the universe began to exist.
Yes I’ve heard of the kalam argument and like most people I dissmiss it. Apart from the obvious problems with using it to prove the existence of a God, see Bertrand Rusell’s response, asking someone to disagree with two arbitrary statements based on unfounded assumptions doesn’t really count as an argument in my book.
As for the presence of life on other planets, given the timescale involved (billions of years) and the limited number of plan eta we have access to, it seems highly unlikely we would be aware of any extra planetary life. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist outside of our current reach, nor that it hasn’t existed in the past/will happen in the future. That’s the problem when you’re talking about a series of unlikely events happening over the course of billions of years. Of course, if you believe the bible you can substitute “unlikely events” with “God’s plan” and “billions of years” with “thousands of years”.
How much other stuff are we allowed to dismiss? The universe did have a begining, or so it is now believed by a majority of scientists. So what caused this big explosion of matter just appearing? And what about all the dating methods that do in fact suggest thousands of years as opposed to billions? Do we dismiss the fact that there are discrepancies in dating methods scientists claim to be accurate? Or the cambrian explosion? Or the fossil record which seems to be missing the whole bottom three quarters of darwins tree of life? How bout if i blended up a frog for you. How many billions of years do you suppose it would take for the frog to put itself back together an jump out again? You do have all the essentials for life. Or even come out as something else. And turn into a man.
@Underoath, even if God created the universe, where did God himself come from? ..
@nobody:
But that’s why he’s God! God is God because he is the only thing that doesn’t have to be made. He operates without any rules (he is infinite and has no beginning), and creates the rules that govern the world (everything else is finite and has a beginning). Being in the world, we can only think and operate within those confines, so we can’t measure God by them since he is not confined in the world like we are!
@nobody
Exactly what clearly said!! your question “where did god come from” implies that there was a starting point or a beginning to god which requires him to be stuck in a half dimension of time like we are. obviously such a powerful being, that we christians and other monotheistic religions beleive he is, would have control over his own creation, that being time in this case. he has no beginning, no end, there is no time line that starts or stops for him.
Where did the DNA come from that allowed the first simple cell to reproduce itself? What is the cause for the effect of life? What keeps protons from repelling each other? What is light? What are the requirements for life, and the statistical probability? What is the power source of a gravitational field that causes accelleration? What defined the speed of light? Why in history do we not find developing languages? Why did the human race wait until just 5 to 10 thousand years ago to produce language? Why in the last 50 years has techonology advanced so rapidly (about the time Isreal became a nation in a day . . .).
Answers to all this I could not find in my text books. I did however find them in the Bible. I then became a Christian, unable to maintain my atheism with science. Don’t confuse the truth with religion - they are not all the same. I was seeking the truth, not religion and the only way you will not find it, is if you exclude the possiblity before you look (how scientific!).
Exatheist - Are you seriously suggesting the answers to all those questions are in the Bible!?!? I’ve read the Bible, and I don’t remember any mention of quantum mechanics! And bear in mind, saying “God did it” isn’t an answer at all. Because, by that measure, who/what “did” God? This whole “well it’s God” position that many religious people take really confuses me. You’ve listed a number of areas in science where there may (or may not, I’ll come on to that in a second) be questions. Yet I’ve never met a single religious person who’s willing to even begin to question to creation of their respective God. Hence comments similar to Clearly’s above.
As for the “questions” you’ve raised, well why is the world only 3000 years old? Why is the earth flat? Why is there no reproducible evidence of evolution? Those were all questions at once point, questions that have now been answered by science. Your assumption appears to be that science has plateaued, that it has ceased to progress. But that’s not the case, science is advancing at a staggering rate. And no doubt will continue to answer questions. This is the complete opposite to the Bible, which isn’t changing (as much as people want the sexist, abusive and slavery condoning parts to be removed). Science will always seek out the truth, the Bible is a static work of fiction. And anyone who believes is holds the answers is deluding themselves, especially since many of the “answers” it provides have already been proven to be false.
I just have a couple of simple questions for atheist. Do you have real peace and joy deep down inside you at the core of your being? Do you have real hope for humanity without God? Do you really believe science is going to solve our world’s problems and bring about true peace on earth. Can science ultimately cure people of their selfishness? Can science heal the loneliness of the human heart? Science has accomplished many things for which we are truly grateful. (Thank God that He created such a magnificent and complex mind!) But science has unleashed much harm and suffering on many of the world’s peoples and continues to do so. Yeah, religion has too, which only proves the evil that the human heart is capable of. Question is, what is the true cure for the evil in our hearts? The Bible has an answer, Jesus was born into real human history and died on a real cross and came to life again. If His resurrection is true it changes everything. There’s certainly a lot of evidence it changed those who were his closest followers and spread out from them to change the lives of billions of people from all parts of the globe. You can believe it or reject it but those who humbly admit their sinfulness and need for Him find His help to learn to overcome the evil in their heart with good. I know that awesome news has radically changed my life and has given me tremendous hope and the motivation to live more and more unselfishly. I hope and pray that you will one day know Him & discover how He can fill your life with peace & joy and love and so much more.
simple-minded - In answer to your questions…
“Do you have real peace and joy deep down inside you at the core of your being?”
I am happy and content. More so, I am free to form my own opinions, unlike those who are religious, which gives me a fantastic freedom and happiness.
“Do you have real hope for humanity without God?”
If humanity can free itself from the shackles of the sham we call religion, stop waging religious wars and remove the need for one religious group to conquer another religious group, then yes. I have no hope for humanity with God, any God.
“Do you really believe science is going to solve our world’s problems and bring about true peace on earth. Can science ultimately cure people of their selfishness? Can science heal the loneliness of the human heart?”
It depends which problems you are talking about. The most intense selfishness I’ve come across has been brought about through religious belief, until people start accepting the evidence science provides, they will remain religious and ergo remain selfish. No doubt selfishness will remain, it’s part of the human condition, but it will be on a far more personal level, as opposed to the current selfishness we experience between religious groups. I’m not lonely, quiet the opposite in fact. And as for peace, I’m sure you’re aware of the impact religion has had on the peacefulness of people. Wars have been fought, invasions started, murders performed, all in the name of a God. The world would be unimaginably more peaceful without religion.
“Jesus was born into real human history and died on a real cross and came to life again. If His resurrection is true it changes everything.”
Not only has his resurrection never been proven, but the existence of Jesus has never been proven.
Judging from your comment, it’s easy to see why you are religious. You talk of selfishness and loneliness, no doubt you were brought to religion through a promise of friendship, something to fill the void in your life. Not all of us suffer this deficiency. And I don’t doubt that becoming religious has changed your life. Now you spend your Sundays repeating chants with the rest of the members of your cult. I can live unselfishly based on my own personal moral code, that I’ve been free to form on my own. I don’t need religion to force me to be a good person, I pity those that do.
The Atheist: “I’ve never met a single religious person who’s willing to even begin to question to creation of their respective God.”
Now you have, even if it is online. This is actually a very standard question.
What would it mean for the creator of the universe to have been created? Simply that there is another creator powerful enough to create a being who is capable of creating a universe. But then where would that being come from? The problem is simply that we can’t keep going further backwards. Either we have to (as Bertrand Russell did) simply state (without any reasons) that we must simply can’t think about this (there are atheistic beliefs after all) or we need a being who is necessary, that is not contingent on any other being to exist. Since something exists, this being must exist, because the chain must start somewhere or nothing would ever come into being.
I agree with your perceptive point that this tells us very little about the Creator (or Creators… it does not even rule out multiple gods, at least not initially), but simply that at least one must exist. It does not necessarily mean that this is the God described in the Bible, but then if it is a valid argument, it does mean that a-theism is wrong.
My apologies on the image use without credit. It was emailed to me by a friend as an attachment and I was not aware of its origin.
The post has been edited to give proper credit.
BGH
Thank you BGH. I’m particularly protective over that post as it’s one of the first I ever wrote!
The saddest thing about this ridiculous argument is that is seems neither the atheist not the theist can fathom the possibility that someone who disagrees with them can still be an intelligent and reasonable individual. That fact more than anything else proves there is something essentially wrong in the hearts of men. You both speak as though YOU have found some kind of great truth and yet the things you cling to are so flimsy that if anyone questions your beliefs you have to immediately tear them down.
If you take the time to speak with people who disagree with you you will eventually find that some people can exist in the middle of these two extremes and still be at peace and they aren’t all that different from you.
P.S. Jonathan Baker….is your third name Johnson? Greenville?
ok lets get this straight
the all loving? all knowing? all powerful? god
has a renegade angel he made and cant get rid of till later? ok so much for all powerful. that same angel does things he dosent see? so much for all knowing. according to you he kills or sends to torment any who disapprove of his book or doesnt follow it exactly. well ill be there goes the all loving part. look at the bible and count how many the devil directly killed then tally up gods score and see who is the genocidist?
i know there are people from both sides that are smart and good. why is it that one side always yells that if you dont have my beliefs you must be evil. when great evil has been done by every great religon in history and given the chance im sure the athiests will do the same.
and for a point dont call hitler an athiest he wasnt one pope pius wouldnt have visited him on his birthday if he wasnt a catholic.
have fun storming the castle.
ok underoath, i respect you, it seems as if you actually have some support, well that supports you, other christians are retarted and cant defend them selves because their retarted, not literally but anyway, the perfect conditions of the earth to make life was a coincidence, there ar trillions of different gallaxies, that means that there are numberless solar systems, and those conditions were bound to happen eventually, and they probobly happened hundreds of times, and will continue to happen, as for us, our traits are a result of adapting to the enviornment that just happened to be perfect for life, and who says life cant adapt to different coditions. and there is something deep athiests and agnostics beleive in, that is both the power of the human mind, which comes from a long line of humans evolving and adapting, and when you study early man and prehistory, you start to realize, it wasnt until the later species of man, that we were capable of creating abstract thoughts about things, unfortunately as culture evolved, one of those abstracts was religion, that even inhibited thoughts, that abstract thought,…religious ones, currupted free thinking, the other deep thing greater than us…nature. if “god” wanted us to beleive in these religions, he shouldnt have given us the power to think, or to question. Thats what the catholics want now, dont judge or question anything we say, just beleive it blindly. Or for us athiests, or those who use reason and knowledge, we can “burn in hell”, as we enjoy the freedom of our thoughts,the right, and the priveledge to think.
peace out, corbs