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Personally, I cannot tell the difference between God and Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can't understand how anyone in their right mind can see a difference.

IanKennedy wrote:Personally, I cannot tell the difference between God and Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can't understand how anyone in their right mind can see a difference.

This is why these conversations end either by conscious and gentlemanly choice, or badly. Do you not see how unctious and supercilious this sounds?

To take it a strictly face value, and ignore the implication, of course you can't. You have made a decision to be an atheist. If you could understand a faith-based conception of G-d, then you wouldn't be an atheist. I, personally, don't understand the conception of Jesus' godhead or the idea of the Christian trinity ensconced as it is in a nominal monotheism. I don't understand it because I'm not a Christian. I will never, however, call someone "out of his right mind" because he is a Christian; and calling someone such because your beliefs differ from his is no better than the worst of the fundamentalists.

Mikey wrote:

IanKennedy wrote:Personally, I cannot tell the difference between God and Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can't understand how anyone in their right mind can see a difference.

This is why these conversations end either by conscious and gentlemanly choice, or badly. Do you not see how unctious and supercilious this sounds?

Yes, but so does telling me that god exists without a shred of evidence for it. At least there's evidence for Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Seriously point out one difference between god and Santa Claus?

To take it a strictly face value, and ignore the implication, of course you can't. You have made a decision to be an atheist. If you could understand a faith-based conception of G-d, then you wouldn't be an atheist. I, personally, don't understand the conception of Jesus' godhead or the idea of the Christian trinity ensconced as it is in a nominal monotheism. I don't understand it because I'm not a Christian. I will never, however, call someone "out of his right mind" because he is a Christian; and calling someone such because your beliefs differ from his is no better than the worst of the fundamentalists.

So are you telling me that you meet an adult of decent IQ who still believes in the Tooth Fairy you wouldn't think there was something wrong with them?

IanKennedy wrote:Yes, but so does telling me that god exists without a shred of evidence for it.

How so? How have I shown you derision for being an atheist in the same manner that you've shown me for not being one?

IanKennedy wrote:Seriously point out one difference between god and Santa Claus?

This is so baldly and uselessly contentious without having anything of value to add that I'm not sure I should even be responding this much.

IanKennedy wrote:So are you telling me that you meet an adult of decent IQ who still believes in the Tooth Fairy you wouldn't think there was something wrong with them?

What I would think of them is immaterial; what's at point is the fact that I wouldn't treat them with derision the way you seem to think it's okay to treat anybody who's not of the same mindset as you.

Let me sum up by reiterating that this conversation has reached the limit of civility; I have already been called "out of my right mind," but at least it's been done nicely.

Ian, I have a very strong hunch that you don't treat people in RL like assholes simply because they have differing viewpoints from yours, and I don't see why it should occur here; but TBH I don't really care much as to why it happened. If you really mean to say that you have doubts about my mental capacity, then PM me.

Nice to see the idea of religion is to be treated as a joke on this forum...

More like to be treated as a target - just like every other argument and opinion.

Captain Seafort wrote:More like to be treated as a target - just like every other argument and opinion.

Calling a faith in God the same as the Tooth Fairy??? No, thats treating it like a joke.

He's ridiculing a concept he finds ridiculous. You and I have both done the same thing a hundred times, and in far more aggressive and descriptive terms.

Captain Seafort wrote:He's ridiculing a concept he finds ridiculous. You and I have both done the same thing a hundred times, and in far more aggressive and descriptive terms.

Indeed - but when we argue (especially you ) we may get to the point of calling one another idiots or suchlike for refusing to understand the points of our arguments... not for believing differently than each other.

And look how many times you've been caught being a hypocrite and how many times I've been warned for being "too rude". There are somethings, especially when coming from Mods and Admins, in which at least some form of respect should be shown.

Let's take the example of me, making the same argument, just with a slightly shifted paradigm: a deistic divinity is OK, but people who believe in Jesus Christ are mentally impaired (I'm not saying that, I'm just making an example.) Is that the same as a debate, even a heated one? I think not, and that is precisely what just happened here.

It allways seems to end up this way, when an aetheist cannot convince a theist that there is no God. The difference here is that this stays on this thread alone. It can be down right nasty dirty on this thread and stay...well, relatively civil on all of the other threads.

I have to agree with Mikey that it becomes very difficult to argue when either side of the argument is clearly entrenched and are arguing based on diametrically opposed points. The whole point of religion as a whole is a belief in something intangible, without evidence. To a theist, they don't need anything more than that (from what I understand). They believe, and that's that. An explanation of how he works, what methods, what he looks like etc. is entirely unnecessary since a theist believes that their chosen deity just...is.

Atheists struggle for this because they operate in such a way that they require answers. They require the how he works, what methods, what he looks like etc. They need to be able to tangibly comprehend. Which, of course, when relating to a god of varying forms simply isn't possible, that's the whole point.

Personally I think it depends on the type of person. I sit very firmly in the atheist camp, not because I want to know how it works (if of course it does) but because I simply believe nothing can exist beyond that which is tangible. S'why I don't take any notice of ghosts and the like, because I find it to be a load of bull. However, some people feel the need to search and reach for something higher and that's fine. Far be it from me to be presumptuous enough to think they are all idiots and should, if they were sane, be atheist.

Reliant121 wrote:because I simply believe nothing can exist beyond that which is tangible.

You mean measurable, right? Most of the electromagnetic spectrum is quite intangible.

On that note, 100 years ago, we had no way of measuring the existence of Pluto, but it was still there.

400 years ago, we couldn't measure the existence of microorganisms, but they were still there.

See where I'm going with this?