The question that best sums up this thread was immortalised in The Life of Brian; "What did the Romans ever do for us?" The brought civilisation to otherwise uncivilised areas. All of the people may not have benefited from this straight away but whenever the Romans left the infrastructure for new civilisations was there. People seem to think that change can only happen without a bit of suffering, but they forget that only in the times of greatest suffering the greatest change is made to happen. The greatest benefit is also obtained by those that live quite a while after the suffering has occurred (the slave trade being a major indicator of this. If it wasn't for the slave trade [although it is impossible to predict what would have happened if the slave trade had never sprung up] then black people would never have gained the place in society that they deserved and may have been left as the "savages" in Africa as they were seen to be).
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL /******ed I think we all know that we do not need religion to be "moral". There are enough theories that show that evolution can produce moral and supposedly "altruistic" behaviour. What may seem good is actually an individual following a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" model. There is also the problem of us moving into large population areas when we have evolved in low population groups where such a model would work to our advantage. Now it is misfiring and causing us to be good in general as long as someone is similar to us (hence why racism is so prevalent). Those who say about meeting atheists who are homophobic and close-minded, people are people. Just because someone does not believe in a higher power does not mean that they are going to be completely open-minded. Atheism gives the option to be open-minded in that atheists are not restricted by dogma. However, if a person is inherently close-minded being atheist is not going to help.
It's awesome. All the people on my floor in halls are nice =] But I think I'm going to break up with Marc because it isn't really working =/ I'm...
As well as develop an entire understanding of the inner workings of the universe.
36823 It's fun being one of the founding fathers.
I keep reading Kazoo as wazoo ._.
Or things might just get even more awkward and weird ._.
I took that statistic (and I know, I hate statistics too. But some people won't listen to your point of view unless you throw in a few percentage signs >_>) from a factual book, published this year. The percentage is less in the UK, but still disturbingly high :( Also, it's okay chum :3
That made me lol for reasons I don't even know D:
/b/ is /b/oring ::L:
That sounds like no religion I've ever come across xD I tend to concentrate on Christians when I refer to theists as they are the prevalent group in the UK and America. But when 40% of Americans think the world is less than 10,000 years old and in the literal story of Creation you understand why atheists have to be so vocal and aggressive. We'd be back in the Dark Ages otherwise (which, incidentally, were caused by the Catholic Church :lolface: )
What of that says I dislike theists? All I was saying is that intolerance in theists is caused by their faith preventing them from being anything but. In an atheist they are driven by evidence and evidence would change their mind. As has been obvious over the years, evidence has no effect on the beliefs of a theist. No matter how obvious and undeniable the evidence is.
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.
LOL I never said I don't like theists. I don't like religion. Biggggg difference there. I would prefer it if people didn't believe in a higher power, but I'm not going to condemn them to eternal pain and suffering and say that they don't deserve the same rights as other human beings.
Why, because it is so poor? :lolface:
I watched the second one and became extremely paranoid. Especially when trying to sleep as my bed is underneath book shelves and I kept thinking something was going to fall off and decapitate me in some really elaborate way =/
One of my boyfriends was 18 when I was 16 and I called him a pedophile all the time :lolface:
The burden of evidence falls on those trying to prove, not those trying to disprove. I.e. Theists have to find evidence (real evidence, not holy texts) to back up their claim that there is a higher power. It's not intolerance, it's a simple observation based on how theists are taught to think and how atheists are taught to think. Intolerance implies close-mindedness when atheists are anything but. Theists lack the ability to be truly open-minded by the simple fact that religion tends to not let them be.
Wrong, fundamentalists are far worse by the simple fact that they have no basis in fact for their beliefs. You are unable to sway them or change their opinions using logic and evidence (as you should be able to with any sane person). Whereas with an atheist, they may be passionate in their "beliefs" (I hate that word >_>) but if you present them with incontrovertible evidence in contradiction to what they see to be true then they will change their minds. Because atheists are lead by evidence and fundamentalist theists are led by what someone tells them. The two are completely different.
Doing what exactly? There are quite a lot things happening in this thread =/
