"Golden Age of Atheism" by David Mills (2 of 5)

[ttiger5050]

I am going to add my business acumen to what I am going to call the "Atheist Industry" and start opening Atheist offices to recruit new believers, just like the Christians do with churches. And I am going to teach the new doctrine of Atheism to debunk the ridiculous Christian movement that has been perpetuated for centuries.

And I will ask for donations, I will sell merchandise and make people feel very guilty for believing anything else.

But I will not molest little children..that the Catholics

[ger7dxm]

Hi David, just read atheist unverse, Brilliant, I have read russell, dawkins, hitchens before, but your book really gets to the basic arguments and principles more so than any of them. When i saw you on youtube I couldn't believe you were a southerner! I thought all southerners were yokuls. I suppose stereopypes would cast me as a drunken poet.

[ArrogantAtheist]

Atheists FTW!!

[benthemiester]

So your saying Judaism is a race? if thats what your implying, then thats the first time ive ever heard of it put that way.

[benthemiester]

You dont need a book to tell people your an atheist, I believe you, be honest call yourelves anti Christian you shouldnt try to hide it, I respect your rights but why not an anti semite, didnt they start this whole western religion? gee I wonder.

[dougmanjones]

That whole child/moron thing was directed at beckero22, by the way. What he wrote was way dumber than what you did.

[dougmanjones]

Let me get this straight.... You have spiritual poverty? That's weird to me. I would think that because you believe, you have spiritual wealth, and, conversely, because I don't believe, it is I who has spiritual poverty. I'm confused. Please explain.

Also, what kind of god is so petty that he needs constant praise and worship? I would think that an all-powerful creator of the universe would be above such things. Guess not, right?

[dougmanjones]

If evidence is "irrefutable", then how come some people can't see it? This is an absolutely ridiculous statement. To what "proof" are you referring anyway?

[dougmanjones]

What are you talking about?

[dougmanjones]

What's so ironic about the impossibility of proving god's existence is how christians are proud of the fact that they can't prove or explain god. This ignorance is the source of their pride and "proof" of god's omnipotence. Furthermore, in a debate, they shift the burden of proof to the nonbeliever. "Prove that god doesn't exist," they say, and when responded to with "You prove he does," they say...."I don't have to." It's infuriating.

[beckero22]

you say that the people wich believes in God doesnt have any prove of that well the definition of inteligent desing sonds familiar?

it has been proved as a cientific fact that exist a designer who done all things becaus all is perfect.

all of the atheist and the people who dont beliebe and speak of cientifics fact of the evolution or all of this kind of shit that denys a creator worck all nothing but pure theory nothing have been prove

[mrmody]

I pray that Jesus will show you how to use spell check.

[dougmanjones]

You're either a child, a moron, or English isn't your first language. Which one is it?

[jscience]

ahh... I hate how the "evolution is random" strawman has found its way into dictionaries, encyclopeias, etc. under the entry "intelligent design"

that, and many also fuck up definitions of thinkgs like vestigial organs, Occam's razor, etc.

[UbiquitousChe]

I think you mean Ockham's razor.

:P

And btw, I agree with you.

[jscience]

Yeah, my bad =)

[EpifanesEuergetes]

Not your bad. You used the Latin spelling, which is quite appropriate, since William of Ockham wrote his works -including the one from which the term Occam's razor comes - in Latin.

[quietAtheist20]

you want to hear another name for intelligent disign... creationism

[jscience]

hehe, jesus in a cheap tuxedo

[boshmansuperhero]

are you sure your david mills?

[Jarezev]

Science and evidence, really?

Like any religious person would be impressed by that. Religion is based on faith, so they are immune to reason and observable reality.

What I would like to se is an elimination of the false link between Communism and Atheism. Nothing makes me angrier than stupid rednecks connecting atheism to communism. And I think that is the problem in America, no one will listen to reason in order to not appear unpatriotic or a communist.

[crazykb]

I want to take what you said about communism one step futher. THe person who created communism (Carl Marx) didn't have the kind of communism we have seen through history in mind. Marx's idea of communism was great, however it got all fucked up when people tried to put it into practice ( which was not the way it was intended to be in the first place). Anyway, just thought I would comment...

[Jarezev]

Yes, I know. You are completely right. But the fallacy with communism isn't that it was meant to destroy the world. It only works if there are no "free riders" (which there allways are). Capitalism, actually capitalizes on peoples selfishness and greed. It realizes that we aren't perfect. And I'm not saying that it's a perfect system. But just like Churchill said about democracy, it's the worst possible system we have, but every other has failed.

[crazykb]

Do you know how many people don't understand what true 'communism' is? Its a real shame. As far as capitilism is concerned I think its the best system we could have. To have a society like ours you need a division of labour, and the pursuit of goods is the best way to get people to do the jobs (get the money to buy the goods )that need to be done. However, our consumeristic life styles are now hurting us (global warming, pullition,ect). I wonder if we will ever grow up...

[Jarezev]

Your right, but problems like global warming and pollution create opportunities. Many companies are now launching environmental friendly projects, and with the oil price rising alternative energy might have a chance. Alternative energy sucks (inefficient and expensive) for the moment, but it might just work in the future as we develop it further.

[crazykb]

I believe things will get worse before they get better when it comes to global warming. As for alternative energy I believe that the best option is nuclear fusion (not fision like we have today). However, as the old joke goes: fusion is always 25 years into the future and has been so for the past 25 years...

[opinionhead444]

He reminds me of a redneck Kurt Vonnegut.

[danielsiq]

We still have the god on gaps in the relation to the universal constants. So, science has not yet ruled the god out.. But its getting there...

[kurtilein3]

danielsiq: no, god is not necessary.

the anthropic principle does the job. ill use it on our planet: a religious person says that the fact that our planet supports life so wellis evidence that this planet was created for us. i say: we are here, thats a fact. there are many different planets, 99.9% of them not suitable for life. but we are here, so we logically HAVE TO BE on one of those 0,01% of planets that support life.

[kurtilein3]

... continued

as long as there is just 1 planet in the universe that supports life, and we are here to think about it, we have to be on exactly this one planet.

it also works for the universe: the fact that we are here to look at it tells us something about the properties of our universe, but it does not tell us that our universe was fine-tuned for us unless you can disprove the existence of other (lifeless) universes. science couldnt rule out this possibility yet.

one less gap ;)

[kurtilein3]

i know, the anthropic principle is a case of counter-intuitive logic.

its so simple that you just dismiss it when you first hear it, until you think about it and you recognize that this simple logic actually does the job.

it doesnt rule out god, but it makes the supernatural unnecessary, the anthropic principle is an alternative that you cannot disprove unless you disprove the existence of lifeless universes. you can now use occams razor to get rid of the god-hypothesis.

[danielsiq]

yes of course.. I tottaly agree, and I do think the same way. However we cannot be arrogant to say that we know why gravity is what it is, or why the Str and Weak forces and etc. These are still a puzzle to humanity.

I don't know if we can (yet) rule out the probability that (for example) the Big Bang was a byproduct of another civilization's wormhole experiment gone horribly wrong. Highly unlikely perhaps, but we can't rule it out as a possible explanation. For now its just a big "how knows"

[danielsiq]

"who knows" I meant.. sorry =]

[kurtilein3]

the god of the gap-people claim that god is somehow necessary as an explanation, and that just isnt the case. there always are other explanations that are more simple and that dont require any gods ;)

[kurtilein3]

the god of the gap-people claim that god is somehow necessary as an explanation, and that just isnt the case. there always are other explanations that are more simple and that dont require any gods ;)

[cryptographix]

Excellent!

[19995700]

This illumination through education will I think be the death of religion. Understanding has been debunking myths now for centuries until there isn't much room left for hocus pocus.

Thank God for people like Dan Brown, David Mills, Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris and of course Christopher Hitchens!

[wes1087]

Lol your last sentence is very ironically funny. >>Thank GOD for people like [list of atheists].

Haha just had to point that out.

[19995700]

That was the idea ;)

[19995700]

Love it. The information age is just that. There is more information at our finger tips than at any other time in history. And further to this there is a correlation between education and religion -- i.e. generally speaking the better educated the less religious.

[sthomas68]

This is great! I love your explanation as to how Intelligent Design was integrated into the educational system.

[Rhonda9]

Good job. Enjoyed. :)