Analysis: Athiesm worldwide in decline

I've never met anyone who doesn't think there is relevance in trying to figure out what the cause of the universe is. Again, atheists (agnostics perhaps) think about it more than anyone because they don't subscribe to any answer!

I know little about quantum physics, but I believe that one of the consequences of this theory is that matter actually can come spontaneously into existence.

Also, there's the fact that matter and energy are interchangeable and energy isn't created nor destroyed but just transforms.

Third, the fact that science hasn't discovered the exact origin of the Universe yet.

And why do you find illogical the notion that there's no Why?

Well, isn't that convenient!

So basically, the reason is "because we say so"? The universe can't be eternal and infinite in this argument, but a god can? That's the lack of intellectual honesty that infuriates atheists. We're challenged to explain all aspects of the unexplainable to support our disbelief, but religions are not willing to explain all aspects of the unexplainable that they hold up as support of their belief.

[George Carlin]"Well, it's a mystery."[/George Carlin]

I don't think it's irrelevant, but given the odds that you really find out in your lifetime, I think one should better try to live the best (happiest) life he can regardless of the anwser.

It's very convenient, I agree.

I don't ask you to explain anything, but now that you mention it, you did say something about (1) you've studied the matter and (2) the likelihood of god is equal or less than you and I being part of Friedel's brain. Now you say it's unexplainable. So I'd say you were less than intellectually honest in saying you have come to a conclusion based on evidence, rather than your own unsupported belief.

It's atheists appeal to a false, faulty or overextended science that infuriates the religious.

Sorry, had to.

God meant for schools to enforce an intelligent design curriculum ... and spanking.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

I don't think you're giving the Friedel brain possibility enough credit.

I just think his god-like qualities ended in JK02.

Damnit... I'm having the same problem. IIRC, he had some outstanding posts in the last such thread we had around these parts -- late December I think it was. ASF: ever thought about selling your business and getting a degree in Philosophy or Religion?

eh?

I never said anything about a god of anyone's gaps. I thought Victoria Secret had that market covered actually. I was responding to a poster who wondered why it is that people find it easier to imagine God as an ever-lasting being, while the idea of an infinite or ever-lasting physical universe is absurd to our rationality.

How do you derive usefulness or uselessness from anything I said?

It's called a growing process.
Like a regular pentulant child, god grew out of his old toys (Jews) once he found his first love (inexpertly, we might add, since she kept her "intactness" after the initial awkward encounter).
He's since mellowed out (no floods, smitings, plagues or pillars of salt for thousands of years now, while in Biblical times these things seem to have occured on an hourly basis), changed his culinary tastes (pork a plenty for the Big Cheese, thank you very much!), stopped to desperately look for attention (no more burning shrubbery, voices from the sky or appearances in dreams) and has apparently moved to Mexico, making an occasional appearance on a tortilla.
The old insecurities (a maniacal desire to be loved or else!..) remain and the love for the childhood fancies (Jews) has turned into a pet peeve, but that's something for a shrink to deal with.

- Dr. Leibowitz, your two-o'clock is here.
- Thank you, Golda... Ah, good afternoon, Yeshua! How are you feeling?
- Doc, the nightmares are back again.

If deep, biting sarcasm is offered as a post, and no one seems to get it, is it still sarcasm?

If it is recognized as such as you have so kindly done for us.

I mean that even if you determine that there is a being who is the first cause (a determination that I do not find at all convincing), there is still the problem of connecting that being to the particular god you worship. Such an idea does not help your particular religion any more than it helps the other ones that have god(s) creating the world.

Separate issues really.

Because it is both at the same time. We know enough about the universe to make the claim "A Christian God created it because he wants people to worship him" unlikely at best. Yet we have also determined that there is a period of time at the biginning of the universe before which we cannot say much because the physics that describes the current universe breaks down.

Don't make claims you can't back up.

Then why are Christians like the people that wrote the article that started this thread (magical back-on-topic powers, activate!) so happy that the British philosopher Anthony Flew changed his mind and said he believes in a sort of diest, intelligent being who created the universe? They obviously think there is some connection.

I think modern Christianity is way too preoccupied with the whole evolution/big bang business -- probably in part because they perceive (thanks to some overzealous atheists) the two ideas as contrary to the idea of a Creator, as if the Bible is some kind of textbook on the natural sciences.

DK, why don't you just admit that as a new convert (thanks entirely to HIAS-supplied literature and a mad desire to distance self from the Mama-land) you are out of your league here and in no position to serve as the Big Yamulka's advocate.

BTW, the modern religiosos have been remarkably quick to adapt. This whole "the Bible is not a textbook of all the world's knowledge" is a very new argument, totally contrary to all the previous ones.

One day you might manage to get me to talk about this stuff Shurik, but not just yet, I merely came in to interject a passing remark I'll just say that you are very wrong on all three points above, but you can't be right about everything ALL the time, can you?

"Sorry for the inconvenience"

I think 'tis time, my son.
It is your fate to be the first Jew to go to confession, and whom is it better to confess to than a cynical Soviet atheist, expelled from the Yong Pioneers in the age of 12 for beating up a teacher?
You grab that chance when you get it and you get it now.

Shurik, in your desire to distance yourself entirely from your grandmother's natural heritage, you're throwing out the whole apartment with the bathwater. We know, you're an atheist cynical Jew only by ethnicity. I get it. But why play into the role role of homo soveticus that uncles Leo and Vlad turned you into? Its partially a choice, you know.
The Jewish attitude toward religion has always been more, ah, questioning than most Christian sects. Who do you think spawned Spinoza, after all?