Guess who’s the #1 atheist in the world?
| December 9, 2011 | Posted by News under Atheism, Intelligent Design, News |
43 Responses to Guess who’s the #1 atheist in the world?
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Don’t worry Dicky D, you are still the number 1 heathen in my book…. Just check this sick thrown down by Dicky D:
Strange, I thought all atheists were #2…
They are full of it-
Then how did Richard Dawkins make the list at all?
“Have you ever had doubts about your atheism? Have you ever considered renouncing it?”
“Of course I have doubts all the time,” he said
http://byfaithonline.com/page/.....evangelist
Probably because if such a guideline were followed, it would be difficult to even make a top 5 list.
Many like to think that atheists tend to be just as dogmatic as the religious, but IMO it’s just not true.
What an interesting list. Well, I was really disappointed by the basd placements of some (especially PZ and James Randi). Probably, the “celebrity based” list is more interesting.
Many like to place ” the religious” under the blanket of dogmatism but based upon my personal experience it’s just not true.
please explain
It was in a sort of response to Goodusername..who stated “many like to like to think atheist are as dogmatic as the religious”. I am religious as are the majority of my friends and family…dogmatic thinking is not a core trait of any of them. Open minded, exploratory conversations filled with doubts and disagreements occur all the time between us. We all find it an intellectually fulfilling growth process that crosses denominations, religions and beliefs.
Understood. Thanks…
GUN as to
Please feel free to wander over to PZ’s site, or even on youtube ID/Evolution videos for that matter, and test your ‘non-dogmatic atheist’ hypothesis out by briefly defending the theistic position. Please do come back and tell us how reasonable and non-dogmatic the atheists are to you.
Why would atheists making arguments against theism show atheism is dogmatic? One can argue over things far short of dogma (a single, authoritative belief enforced by the organization), like opinions.
Look at the terms used to describe atheism-weak/strong, positive/negative. Practical atheism. Different alternatives.
So what’s the dogma? That some people wipe the floor with you when you make silly arguments?
Dr Rec
Religious people only bring love to the world, and never do anything bad to anyone.
(How do you like it when someone bullshits you the way you bullshit us. By the way, why did you bail on the discussion about genomic information transfer? Have you figured out how a immaterial quality becomes established in a material object?))
DrREC,
Glad you asked,, Oh let’s see,,
Being absolutely defiant, even very deceptive, to accept the facts that God is the best explanation for,,,
More detailed notes and references:
further notes from Dr. Craig:
Song and verse:
Well each and every one of them will one day, on The Day, give an account to You Know Who for their foolishness.
If I had a nickel every time I’ve had a discussion with a Christian and was objected to for daring to describe their position as a “belief” (“I don’t ‘believe’, I KNOW!”) I’d be living in a different tax bracket. Conversely, I think the vast majority of self-described atheists would object if you described their position as “knowing” there’s no God.
I’m familiar with the sites you mention. There are of course dogmatic atheists, and Christians with skepticism; but in both cases they are going against the grain. Skepticism is generally viewed positively among atheists (even skepticism of atheism), but negatively among Christians (“the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” James 1:6)
Recall the notorious bus campaign, of which Dawkins was a part of, many Christians poked fun at atheists for expressing DOUBT (gasp!) on their own position (“There’s probably no God”).
And, predictably, there were (several) counter bus campaigns responding with ads such as “There definitely is a God”.
Imagine a Christian (or Muslim) leader saying “I have doubts all the time” regarding the existence of God or that no thinking person “knows” that there’s no God. Of course, such doubts would preclude someone from being a religious leader. And yet, with that same level of doubt, Dawkins is viewed not just as a “leading atheist”, but by many (Christians and atheists alike) as arrogant and “extremist”, and there are indeed very few more extreme than Dawkins on the issue (P. Z Myers is probably one).
Again, if the list guidelines were actually followed, there wouldn’t be much of a list.
Yes that is one of the great characteristics of atheism. Atheist are always questioning themselves in public. They write books about how to be a good questioning atheist, produce seminars on college campuses, and promote the very real possibility of the falsity in atheism on radio and television.
This of course is fully demonstrated by the Dawkins bus campaign where he said “probably no God” and the response from religious fundamentalists was the pointing of fingers and mockery that he was still so unsure of himself.
That’s how I remember it. It just goes to show you that the occassional attack on theism is really a mild abberation among the neverending questioning of themselves.
But hey…if I had a nickel for every time a materialist walked out on the conversation about the physcal evidence of semiotic information transfer in the genome, I’d be up to about three dollars and seventy-five cents.
The finanical setback seems to be coming from the demonstrated fact that I can’t get too many to engage the argument, either from the very start, but certainly not after the observations are laid out.
I admit to having one of the world’s worst sarcasm detectors, and I’m pretty sure it’s going off here – but I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
Yes, it is normal for atheists, in their books, seminars, etc to promote the idea that one should not be dogmatic about atheism. (If you disagree, I’m curious what you’ve been reading?)
If even Dawkins – of all people – in his most anti-theist book (“The God Delusion”) writes that’s it’s unreasonable to be dogmatic regarding the non-existence of God – well, what more could one ask? And the same sentiment can be found in the works of Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, Gould, Sagan, Asimov, etc.
What are the odds that if I pick up a book from a Christian leader that I’ll find similar passages regarding Christianity?
Not being dogmatic doesn’t mean that you have no beliefs, or don’t argue for a particular position. It just means that you don’t ask for faith or total conviction for the position that you’re arguing for. This can be seen even in “The God Delusion”, and just about every other book from atheists that I’ve read. And yes, even in the bus campaign. Why was “probably” in there? Because they don’t want to promote dogmatism.
So, yes, I would say it is “one of the great characteristics of atheism”. Where else do we see this sort of thing? It’s easy to promote open-mindedness and not be dogmatic on something that you don’t really believe. lol The true test is open-mindedess is whether one asks people to keep an open mind – even on subjects where they have a particular belief that they are promoting, and we see this in most books from atheists promoting atheism.
gooduser, you think that what people say is a measure of the truth of the matter. LOL be my guest.
Here is a clue: theists and atheist alike say one thing and do another – fairly often. The distinction between them is what the rest of us can use to gauge their behavior. You stand here like you’re defending a better model of lemon-fresh human being. Get real. Atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens and Coyne and Harris tout those disclaimers so that they can feel the palpable power of their own objectivity. And the fools rush in.
You need to ease up off the fumes.
(and by the way, if you’d like to measure’s Dawkin’s and Dennet’s value as loudspeakers for the truth of materialism, do it by asking them how the semiosis physically observed in genetic translation came about, not by admiring their masturbatory objectivity as they attack their opponents).
Bumper stickers on Pete’s VW Van:
People Are Animals Too
Preserve WildLife, Throw a Party
One of the few things worse than my sarcasm detector is my mind-reading cap. Maybe yours is much better and you can tell that they’re all liars. Poor me, all I can do is go by what people do and read what they are promoting and use that as “a measure of the truth on the matter.” As for myself, I don’t believe in God – and I agree essentially with what Dawkins has to say, but I consider myself quite open to the possibility that there’s a God and afterlife. In fact, I hold out hope there is (seems better than the alternative IMO). So I have no particular reason to doubt that Dawkins, et al, are open to the possibility. I believe MedsRex, below, when he says that he’s open minded on the question of God. Why not?
Too often people seem to equate “closed-minded” with “disagreeing”.
GUN you mentioned Christian Theist ‘knowing’ what they believe is true, as opposed to atheists ‘always questioning’ what they believe is true,,, The thing is GUN, is that some atheists ARE DOGMATIC in their ‘always questioning’ what they believe is true! (I will ignore, for now, the atheists who think they know it all)!,,, GUN It may surprise you to know that the reason why Christian Theists can be so confident in their knowledge, and that some atheists will forever be questioning their knowledge, is because of the fact that materialism itself, which under-girds atheism, can offer absolutely no guarantee to you, as a atheist, that what you believe will be true, whereas Christian Theism, can and does offer that guarantee for assurance of truthfulness!;
notes:
This following site is a easy to use, and understand, interactive website that takes the user through what is termed ‘Presuppositional apologetics’. The website clearly shows that our use of the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality cannot be accounted for unless we believe in a God who guarantees our perceptions and reasoning are trustworthy in the first place.
Further notes:
Materialism simply dissolves into absurdity when pushed to extremes and certainly offers no guarantee to us for believing our perceptions and reasoning within science are trustworthy in the first place:
The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth he is giving in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?);
Are you starting to see why atheism is a ‘always questioning’, dog chasing its tail in a circle, proposition GUN???
Verse and music:
I question my beliefs because I’m fallible.
gooduser,
Check the mainspring; that’s what it was on mine.
And you are correct about your mind-reading cap. I never said anyone was a liar. The “they’re all liars” remark is a hot potato you threw in to call attention away from the fact that you and I both know these men are not promoting skepticism of either themselves or atheism. These men are abusing their status as scientists and academics, but its certainly not abuse because I happen to disagree with them. Its abuse because they cannot stand in front of the evidence and offer a scientifically-coherent answer as to where the observed formalism came from which is driving Life. These empiricists and powerful thinkers have fumbled around and forgotten which side of the bread the butter is on. It’s on the side with the physical evidence.
If someone used their cultural status as an empiricist and academic to proclaim the “99%” certainty they feel about the situation while at the same time ignoring the material evidence against them, would that give you something else to go on besides your warm admiration for the skepticism they have of themselves?
Its good that you believe in choices. But its nice to be making those choices with all the information, particularly if you seek this information from those who say they have it – as well as those who are going to tell you anyway. Since you’ve read all these materialist’ books, did any of them address how material objects can come to possess (entirely observable) immaterial properties? The translation of nucleotides into proteins requires it.
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of a symbolic representation. Its the only way information gets transferred. Did they not tell you that?
It’s hard to disagree with something if you’ve never heard it. That’s where the close-mindedness comes in, if it does.
take care goodusername
GUN,
According to what transcendent standard can you proclaim you are fallible? Atheism/Materialism certainly offers you no absolute ‘transcendent straight line’ from which to judge if you are straying from what is right and good or not.
I believe I’m fallible because I have been wrong before (once or twice). Nothing “transcendent” is necessary to discover that you’re fallible. If you thought you left your keys in one place and discover them somewhere else – there ya go.
GUN, that is far too simplistic an answer. Why should there be, on a materialistic view of nature, presupposed to even be a constant transcendent order that insures that the shape of the key will correspond to the shape of the lock in the first place so that you can ‘know’ that you are wrong? i.e. Why should you, on a materialistic view of nature, trust that there should be such unchanging transcendent order imposed onto the material realm so that you can trust your perception and reasoning to be reliable in the matter of lost keys? You simply have no justification, on a materialistic view of nature, to presuppose such constant reliability to be accessible to your reasoning! ,,,, This simple point is clearly illustrated in the absurdities of multiverse and parallel universe conjectures of materialists use to avoid the Theistic implications of extreme fine-tuning of the universe, as well as quantum wave collapse!
Become a Peter Singkateer.
To join all you have to do is save 3 animals and then kill your grandpa.
For level 2 clearance you must sell all your goods and give the proceeds to the poor while your girlfriend is having her abortion.
semi OT: Why is the neo-Darwinist PZ Myers in such a tizzy about this study on the after effects of abortion on women?
This study has absolutely nothing to do with PZ Myers’ particular (pseudo) scientific field of evolutionary biology. i.e. There is absolutely no connection,, Thus his severely misplaced moral outrage, at a study not even in his own field of study, just further illustrates that Darwinism is a religion in every sense of the word for this man that goes far beyond mere science!
BA77,
I have no idea what a “constant transcendent order” is. But I don’t presuppose that the shape of the key will correspond to the shape of the lock, I believe it from experience. How is that different from a “non-materialist” view of nature?
I’m not sure what you mean by “unchanging transcendent order”, but if you mean why do I believe the key will continue to work in the future, again, it’s from experience – that’s the way nature seems to work.
Why not? And what’s the alternative? Why trust your reason? If it’s for some “transcendent” reason, how can you trust your reason to believe that the reason that you can trust your reason is for some transcendent reason?
GUN, though you experience order constantly, you simply do not have justification, in your ‘ultimate’ materialistic/atheistic view of reality, to presuppose unchaining transcendent ‘truth/order’ to be present in nature for you to discover. i.e. Other than your experience of unchanging order, from your materialistic metaphysics you have no reason to presuppose the key will always fit the lock! Your metaphysics in fact argues forcefully against such order at the basis of reality. In fact atheistic materialists presuppose chaos, i.e. random chance, at the foundation of all reality (and argue vehemently for such a view through multiverses, parallel universe, ‘random’ variation/natural selection, etc.. etc..), Yet the Christian Theist is fully justified to presuppose such order to be present for us to discover;
Moreover Gun, besides having no justification to presuppose unchanging order imposed on material reality ‘out there’ for us to discover, You don’t even have justification for trusting what you believe to be rigorously true:
The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth he is giving in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?);
BA77,
Agreed. I just said that. lol I don’t presuppose order. I don’t believe anyone does. No one believes that there’s order before they experience it.
Materialism doesn’t argue that there should be laws of nature. Nor does it argue that there shouldn’t be. The reason for believing that there are laws to nature is that experience tells us that they exist.
Agreed, there is no reason to presuppose order. But plenty of reason to suppose order.
I’ve already agreed that there’s no reason to presuppose order (actually, I already agreed to that even before you wrote this post – I have a feeling this is a copy-and-paste job I’m responding to). I’m not sure if my beliefs are “rigorously true”, although I try my best, I’m still fallible. What reason do you have to trusting what you believe to be rigorously true? You didn’t answer that. And, again: “If it’s for some “transcendent” reason, how can you trust your reason to believe that the reason that you can trust your reason is for some transcendent reason?”
GUN, Though a few facts may be a bit off in this following essay, which I wrote several years back, I believe the overall point is still directly pertinent to the topic:
What is Truth?
To varying degrees everyone looks for truth. A few people have traveled to distant lands seeking gurus in their quest to find “Truth”. People are happy when they discover a new truth into the mysteries of life. People who have deep insights into the truth of how things actually work are considered wise. In the bible Jesus says “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” So, since truth is considered such a good thing, let us look for truth in a common object; a simple rock.
Few people would try to argue that a rock is not real. Someone who would argue that it is not real could bang his head on the rock until he was satisfied the rock is real. A blind man in a darkened cave would feel the rock hitting his head just as well as a sighted man who saw the rock coming.
A rock is composed of three basic ingredients; energy, force and ‘truth’. From Einstein’s famous equation (e=mc2) we know that all matter (solids, liquids and gases) of the universe is ultimately made up of energy and therefore the entire rock can “hypothetically” be reduced to energy.
This energy is “woven” by various complex, unchanging, transcendent, universal forces into the atoms of the rock. The amount of energy woven by these complex interactions of various, unchanging, universal forces into the rock is tremendous. This tremendous energy that is in the rock is clearly demonstrated by the detonation of nuclear bombs.
This woven energy is found in each and every individual “particle/wave” of every atom, in the trillions upon countless trillions of atoms in the rock. While energy can be said to be what gives “substance” to the rock, energy in and of itself is a “non-solid” entity. In fact, the unchanging, transcendent, universal constants/forces, that tell the energy exactly where to be and what to do in the rock, can be said to be the ONLY solid, uncompromising “thing” in the rock. Yet there is another ingredient which went into making the rock besides constants/forces and energy. An ingredient that is often neglected to be looked at as a “real” component of the rock. It is the transcendent and spiritual component of truth. If truth did not exist the rock would not exist. This is as obvious as the fact that the rock would not exist if energy and/or unchanging force did not exist. It is the truth in and of the logical laws of the interrelated unchanging forces of the universal constants that govern the energy in the rock that enable the rock to be a rock in the first place.
Is truth independent and dominant of the energy and force? Yes of course, there are many philosophical truths that are not dependent on energy or force for them to still be true. Yet energy and unchanging force are precisely subject to what the unchanging “truth” tells them they can and cannot do in the rock. To put it another way, the rock cannot exist without truth yet the truth can exist without the rock. Energy and force must always obey the truth that is above them or else the rock can’t possibly exist. Since truth clearly dictates what energy and/or unchanging force can or cannot do, it follows that truth dominates energy and unchanging force. Energy and unchanging force do not dominate truth. It is also obvious that if all energy and/or force stopped existing in this universe, the truth that ruled the energy and force in the rock would still be logically true. Thus, truth can be said to be eternal, or timeless in nature. It is also obvious that truth is omnipresent in this universe. That is to say, the truth that is in the rock on this world is the same truth that is in a rock on the other side of the universe on another world. Thus, truth is present everywhere at all times in this universe (Indeed, Science would be extremely difficult, to put it very mildly, if this uniformity of truth, for all of nature, were not so). It has also been scientifically proven, by quantum non-locality, that whenever something becomes physically “true” (wave collapse of entangled electron, photon) in any part of the universe, this “truth” is instantaneously communicated anywhere/everywhere in the universe to its corresponding “particle”. Thus, truth is “aware” of everything that goes on in the universe instantaneously. This universal instantaneous awareness of a transcendent truth also gives truth the vital characteristic of being omniscient (All knowing). This instantaneous communication of truth to all points in the universe also happens to defy the speed of light; a “truth” that energy and even the unchanging force of gravity happen to be subject to (I believe all fundamental forces are shown to be subject to this “truth’ of the speed of light). This scientific proof of ‘instantaneous’ quantum non-locality also proves that truth is not a “passive” component of this universe. Truth is actually scientifically demonstrated, by quantum non-locality (and quantum teleportation), to be the “active” dominant component of this universe. Thus, truth is not a passive set of rules written on a sheet of paper somewhere. Truth is the “living governor” of this universe that has dominion over all other components of this universe and is not bound by any of the laws that “truth” has subjected all the other components of the universe to. Truth is in fact a tangible entity that enables and dictates our reality in this universe to exist in a overarching non-chaotic form so as to enable life to exist (Extreme Fine -tuning of constants)). Truth, which is shown not to be subject to time in any way, shape, or form, by quantum non-locality, has demonstrated foresight and purpose in the extreme fine-tuning for this temporal universe and, as such, can be said to be “alive” from the fact that a “decision” had to be made from the timeless/spaceless dimension, that ‘truth’ inhabits, in order for this temporal reality to become real in the first place.
i.e. ‘Truth’ is a major characteristic of the necessary Being, “uncaused cause”, the Alpha, that created all reality/realities. Moreover, that a photon would actually be destroyed upon the quantum teleportation of its ‘specific truth’ (infinite specified information) to another photon, is a direct controlled violation of the first law of thermodynamics, and provides a direct line of evidence that ‘truth’ is the foundational entity of this universe that gives rise to everything in this universe.
Well, lets see what we have so far; Truth is eternal (it has always existed and will always exist); Truth is omnipresent (it is present everywhere in the universe at all times); Truth is omnipotent (it has dominion over everything else in the universe, yet is not subject to any physical laws); Truth has a vital characteristic of omniscience (truth is apparently aware of everything that is happening in the universe); Truth is active (it is aware of everything that is happening and instantaneously makes appropriate adjustments); and Truth is alive (Truth has created a temporal universe from a reality that is not subject to any physical laws of time or space (transcendent of time and space) for the express purpose of creating life; extreme fine-tuning) Surprisingly, being eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, active and alive are the foundational characteristics that are used by theologians to describe God. Thus, logically speaking, spiritual/transcendent truth emanates directly from God and is coexistent with the Character of His Being. So in answer to our question “What is Truth?” we can answer that ‘truth’, as far as the scientific method is concerned, comes from God.
Now to bring this into the focus of the Christian perspective, Jesus says that He is “The Truth”. And in regards to what is currently revealed in our scientific knowledge, I would say that this is a VERY, VERY fantastic claim! If Jesus is speaking the truth, which I believe He is, then by the rules of logic this makes Jesus equivalent to God Almighty. Well,,, Is Jesus God??? Though this is somewhat difficult to bear out scientifically, there actually is now some fairly strong scientific evidence that gives very credible, and persuasive, indication that this is so,, i.e. that Christ is God!
Myself, I find the overall pattern of evidence that Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth to be overwhelmingly compelling as well as a source of great Joy.
What has happended to the quality of opposition at UD. You use to be able to make comments like those made above in 3.1.2.2.3 and get a massive response of people wanting to take on the physical issues.
It appears that arguing over religion is more empirically valuable than addressing phyical evidence. That much hasn’t changed.
Many of the women in this report likely had these problems to begin with.
GUN you ask:
Because what I believe to be ‘true’, especially the things I hold to be ‘rigorously true’, are rigorously true!
Only someone who denied the obvious reality of the existence of truth would even ask such a question! ,,, A little guidance doesn’t hurt either.
I disagree, A woman who felt no remorse would hardly be fit for motherhood in the first place.
Still no takers?
I’ll check back later. Surely someone has an unused sock.
Personally I think that a woman who would get an abortion has issues before the abortion. Many of these women are not fit for motherhood.
However Im sure that guilt, remorse and regret exacerbate their problems that much more.
chirp chirp
hope you enjoy your celestial north korea.
All this christian love and tolerance fills the heart with joy.
“By the way, why did you bail on the discussion about genomic information transfer?”
Not sure what you mean, I don’t live on this site like some folks. Maybe I found the discussion trite, boring or complete. That or someones massive page long spam of links and misquotes buried your follow up comments.
“Have you figured out how a immaterial quality becomes established in a material object?”
What immaterial quality are you speaking of?
I would think the reason that most folks who would be interested in responding to you now need to pull out a sock to do so, Upright, would pretty indicate the disincentive most folks have in actually responding to such at this point in this forum. Particularly in recent days with KF banning folks for merely disagreeing with him.
I’m sure my days on this blog are now numbered merely for noting such…