• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Debunking those atheists, the smart way!

BerberElla

12 and a half weeks
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
2,725
MBTI Type
infp
Let's just say, you know for a fact that eating children is wrong. A great number of people believe as you do and we all acknowledge it in unity. Then there is a website that says that eating babies is fine that you don't need to "buy into it" and believe that eating babies is wrong. There is a couple of blogs that talk all day how liberating and fantastic eating children are. Now whoever listens to them think they are crazy and very wrong but a few listen to the intellect behind the reasoning, they listen to the argument. Let's say the argument says it's natural for many animals eat their young in nature, and people are just a part of the natural process or something like that. Some people buy into it and start doing it.

You struggle everyday as to why people think like that, they all must be crazy, what do they know that you don't? This goes on and on but after a while you get curious. You then start to go around thinking why you don't get to eat babies as others do and how some people demand that you don't, like your parents. Then one day you get an opportunity to do it but everything in your soul KNOWS it is wrong. You shake at the thought of eating that very young child. It's agonizing to you for quite a while, you cuss at yourself for having such insane thoughts!

One day you see a little 5 year old at some playground and you convince yourself that you have to know what it's like. You seize the moment and kidnap the child. You keep that child tied up for days agonizing whether you should do it or not. You almost feel yourself slipping away into insanity to the point you can't take it. So you get the nerve somehow, and do it. Then afterwords you say to yourself that it was too quick that you need to try it again to see if the feelings you had during were genuine. So flash ahead a month and you have done it many times and you now frequent places that do it and go online to websites that also do it and you feel a sense of a warm community. You struggle with the nightmares until they pass and you feel OK. You embrace the fact that you are now a baby eater and you and your new friends are OK with it. The struggle get's a little easier to accept the notion that eating babies is fine for the natural process. You teach you own kids that it is perfectly natural to eat babies. You start your own website that is called "Eat babies!" and you showcase your work.

Is this what an atheist goes through when they start to not believe in God? The stories of struggles, that I have heard, turning away from God are similar to this scenario. Many authors talk about the struggle they go through from belief to non belief. The agonizing pain it causes themselves as well as their families. Could atheists talk themselves into anything? The methodical erosion of ones values and morals can be so damaging, to the point that it's acceptable that"Atheists eat babies."

An atheist may still be moral and say murder and rape are wrong: but when asked why, they will not have a final reason or authority to which they can appeal.

Source


:rofl1:

I like mine slow cooked over an open a fire. :D How do you like yours?
 

Happyman

New member
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
261
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
This story made me an atheist.

It sounds much more interesting then constant moral certainty. ;)
 

Edgar

Nerd King Usurper
Joined
Oct 25, 2008
Messages
4,266
MBTI Type
INTJ
Instinctual Variant
sx
An atheist may still be moral and say murder and rape are wrong: but when asked why, they will not have a final reason or authority to which they can appeal.

I friggin hate this bullshit assertion - "If you don't believe in God then you have nothing to base your morals on".

So personal ethos are insufficient to make a decent human being? One must believe in God, specifically fear God and God's damnation in order to be a decent human being, and not a berserk baby eater?

What would modern Christianity be without a fear of hell anyway? I'm guessing churches' tithing income wouldn't be nearly as high.
 

Oaky

Travelling mind
Joined
Jan 15, 2009
Messages
6,180
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
^ and where do personal ethos come from? :D
 

Edgar

Nerd King Usurper
Joined
Oct 25, 2008
Messages
4,266
MBTI Type
INTJ
Instinctual Variant
sx
^ and where do personal ethos come from? :D

My precious mind.


... and you know, faith in my own ability to decide what is wrong and what is right, without the assistance of poorly translated/altered old fairy tale stories.
 

Oaky

Travelling mind
Joined
Jan 15, 2009
Messages
6,180
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
^ Aah yes. But how did it get in there?
 

Edgar

Nerd King Usurper
Joined
Oct 25, 2008
Messages
4,266
MBTI Type
INTJ
Instinctual Variant
sx
^ Aah yes. But how did it get in there?

You are steering away from the original argument that made a claim that people who do not believe in God have nothing to base their morals on.

Now you are going to that whole "intelligent design" diatribe.
 

Oaky

Travelling mind
Joined
Jan 15, 2009
Messages
6,180
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
^ I know you know that I'm steering away from the original argument. I just want to get to the roots of where personal ethos come from. Surely it wouldn't pop up in your mind from out of nowhere.
 

LEVINA

New member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Messages
75
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
7w8
I must be lucky then. I grew up in a non-religious family and I was allowed to think however I want. (On this notion however, my parents only taught me basic things, I developed my "opinions" by experimenting, other people's opinion, and the internet) When people ask me about my faith, I usually DO get attacked or harassed for not believing in Christianity.

I never felt the need for any spirituality, I knew that people joined religions for a sense of belonging or a purpose in life. That and the majority of people I know were just taught it was the only right thing to believe in.
I had a hard time thinking that there was a Holy "One" and that there was hell (and the fact one goes to hell just because one does not follow the "set universal" rules), afterlife, and just plain old good and bad.

I always thought that religion itself, was just a moral/social rule book.

Nowadays, my views on any sort of spirituality is that, I don't need it. I made my own meaning to my life and the "out there" doesn't effect my current situation.

That isn't to say, however, I don't enjoy thinking, analyzing, theorizing, and putting things into perspective. I actually really enjoy those things.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
Yeah, eating babies is wrong. Unless God tells you to...

“And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat” (Leviticus 26:29).
“And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them” (Deuteronomy 28:57).
“And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend” (Jeremiah 19:9).
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
Point of order: the baby eaters are the believers or the atheists?

I can see an atheist feeling very Nouveau Baby Eater and worrying a lot about the propriety of what he was doing if he were trying to believe in God for the first time.
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Disclaimer: I'm using as much of the extremes and black and whiteness as the OP's post. My arguementation is not to prove wether Atheists or Religious people are right or wrong. I am merely trying to point out the importance of eating babies, and the difference between deciding by yourself or through communities.


So you're saying that people need religion in order to be good.

If that is so, what value does good have? If we are all just following orders instead of realizing and understanding moral values and abide by them through our own understanding?

Suppose, hypothetically, that our lives are a test wether you're going to heaven or hell. Do you think God would like it if someone lives a perfectly good life because he/she was told to, but has no understanding of it other than "Well, it said so in the bible?"?

Or would he prefer an Atheïst who learned and understood moral values by his/herself in order to learn a good life. For themselves, and not for their neighbours?

In other words. Religious people are most prone to eating children if reading about it is good. Atheïsts make up their own damn mind.
 

Usehername

On a mission
Joined
May 30, 2007
Messages
3,794
I friggin hate this bullshit assertion - "If you don't believe in God then you have nothing to base your morals on".

So personal ethos are insufficient to make a decent human being? One must believe in God, specifically fear God and God's damnation in order to be a decent human being, and not a berserk baby eater?

What would modern Christianity be without a fear of hell anyway? I'm guessing churches' tithing income wouldn't be nearly as high.

There's rare mention of hell in the Bible. That's the church (i.e. only some of them) that talks about it. The existence of the devil in literal terms is negotiable in all but the most literal churches.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,187
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Wow. They lost me at "eating children."

I'm sure they'd be offended if someone else started like they did here, then launched into an example of attending a more literalist church, and the crazy things it leads you to believe, and is this what a person feels like when they wander away from God?

There was no argument here, just an expressed opinion couched in some sort of attempt a "logical example" that had some mega-breakdowns in logic. The examples have no real connection to each other, they just pretend to.

There's rare mention of hell in the Bible. That's the church (i.e. only some of them) that talks about it. The existence of the devil in literal terms is negotiable in all but the most literal churches.

Yeah. There is a wide spectrum of belief within the bounds of Christianity, with more and more factions that have broken off because they believe they have the "right" view of things.
Suppose, hypothetically, that our lives are a test wether you're going to heaven or hell. Do you think God would like it if someone lives a perfectly good life because he/she was told to, but has no understanding of it other than "Well, it said so in the bible?"?

Or would he prefer an Atheïst who learned and understood moral values by his/herself in order to learn a good life. For themselves, and not for their neighbours?

I personally would think that God is more concerned with who people become, not necessarily what rules they follow most correctly. There is some overlap there, but internally they are very different.

Just like as a parent, it's nice if my kid doesn't break the law when he leaves home -- it makes me look good and keeps my life intact and her out of trouble -- but what I really want is a living, breathing, thoughtful, provocative human being who is making moral decisions based on her own cognizance. I.e., an autonomous human being who loves me and others directly out of choice, rather than because something or someone else has told her to and is forcing her to. That sort of "follow the rules because they are right" behavior is something my kids do at an early age, it's part of human development, but then they grow into autonomous behavior and driven from inside.
 

Fiver

New member
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
216
MBTI Type
ENTP
Notions of good come from societal mores. Ancient Romans had the cultural idea of The Good Roman. This was based on service to the state, not the Roman gods. In our society, our mores are impacted by dominant a dominant religion. Just because it is true in our society, it does not follow that good comes from a divine being.

I contend the atheist's morality is even stronger than a god-based morality. An atheist must take responsibility for the evil in himself, all his decisions and all the results. There is none of this for an atheist:

-I am loved by God even though I am a sinner.
-God made me a sinner.
-I am forgiven my sins.
-I will be rewarded by union with God for repenting or in some cases living by a religion's tenets.
-God is helping me get through this.
-Everything happens for a reason.
 

Factotum

New member
Joined
Sep 15, 2009
Messages
33
MBTI Type
INTP
Point of order: the baby eaters are the believers or the atheists?

I can see an atheist feeling very Nouveau Baby Eater and worrying a lot about the propriety of what he was doing if he were trying to believe in God for the first time.
The site that article comes from is anti-atheist, so it must be atheists who are the baby-eaters.
 

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
The site that article comes from is anti-atheist, so it must be atheists who are the baby-eaters.

Before or after they believe in God?

Now, see, I know the article is trying to say that stopping believing in God is like trying to eat babies, but how come it's always the God people who're coming up with these kinds of analogies? What puts baby-eating in the mind of a religious writer?

Frankly, I think someone better take a close look at what's really going on inside those temples.
 

Jonny

null
Joined
Sep 8, 2009
Messages
3,134
MBTI Type
FREE
Man, I really wanted to reply to this thread with all the reasons why the quoted text is not logically sound, but then I realized no one here actually believes this... so what's the point?
 
Top