God bless you!

[Corporal Cross]

Hello, and thank you for reading! Please allow me to begin by saying that I am a Christian. It would take an act of divine revelation to change that. Even so, I have seen a lot of excellent points and well-considered opinions on this forum, which is why I am here. So why am I here? The twain are not mutually exclusive.

I am here because there is no shortage of idiocy on either side of the religious fence. For every passage-pruning, preening parochial puissant there is an arrogant, avant-garde, atheist admonisher. I see little difference between the two. I see humans competing for dominance. I would rather hear some sensible arguments that I might use to curb the religious fanaticism of my peers without offending them. Naturally, this does not extend to the mocking, self-righteous new religion asserting that God cannot be proven. I am as keenly aware of the absence of proof as I am the existence of it, and I don't need a cleric to educate me as to all the ways I have sinned in a world with God or without.

Mostly, I am interested in the personal views of atheists and even the faithful who have ended up here. There is little point in speculating about a higher order or lack thereof if one cannot discern what it is made of. So when I show up challenging your faith or lack of it, please know that it is done in the spirit of greater understanding, not malice.

That said, I leave all here with a simple question, to test faithful of any kind. What is the one observable law of the universe?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Welcome.  Don't try to drag me screaming and kicking to the pearly gates and I won't try to get you so drunk you'll bound for fire, smoke, torture and eternal torment because you slipped up right before you got robbed and killed for the 10 dollar Walmart watch.  :-D
Be aware there are some here who are real religion haters here and who will try to drag you down as far as possible. That's not to say i give one rats ass about what you think or believe because I don't, but you're here and so far pretty straight up about your interest which seems fair enough.  I've never had much use for silly superstitious nonsense so fire away and above all have a thick skin.  We're real pricks at times except me.. I'm always nice to everyone.   :-$

By the way. Unless you're actually god himself don't be blessing me. I didn't give you permission.

[PickelledEggs]

What is the one observable law of the universe?

That is the absolute least thought out question I have heard all day.

Do me a favor. Google "scientific law" (i'm guessing that is what you mean by law of the universe) Anything that is a scientific law is so because it is observable. You're a big boy (girl?) now. You can do some of the work.

Other than that... welcome.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

What is the one observable law of the universe?

That is the absolute least thought out question I have heard all day.

Do me a favor. Google "scientific law" (i'm guessing that is what you mean by law of the universe) Anything that is a scientific law is so because it is observable. You're a big boy (girl?) now. You can do some of the work.

Other than that... welcome.

Well,  it's big yanno.

Oh yeah, that's sorta observable too. Never mind.  :)

[Plu]

Please allow me to begin by saying that I am a Christian. It would take an act of divine revelation to change that.

Well that means there's at least one place you'll never up in :P

What is the one observable law of the universe?

There's more than one law of the universe as far as we know, so saying "the one" merely means you have some kind of bias of one over the others.


Also, welcome aboard.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

You must have missed the 11th C
Thou shalt not post and your first time and make others await your response.

[Manodo]

Hello, and thank you for reading! Please allow me to begin by saying that I am a Christian. It would take an act of divine revelation to change that. Even so, I have seen a lot of excellent points and well-considered opinions on this forum, which is why I am here. So why am I here? The twain are not mutually exclusive.

Welcome to the forums. :)

I'm assuming you don't mean the divine revelation part literally, it would be rather circular to require a signal from a god to prove to yourself that a god did not exist!

I am here because there is no shortage of idiocy on either side of the religious fence. For every passage-pruning, preening parochial puissant there is an arrogant, avant-garde, atheist admonisher. I see little difference between the two. I see humans competing for dominance.

I don't agree because you are painting a picture where idiotic theists and idiotic atheists are equally numbered by use of your term "For every...". This is not true from my experience.

I would rather hear some sensible arguments that I might use to curb the religious fanaticism of my peers without offending them. Naturally, this does not extend to the mocking, self-righteous new religion asserting that God cannot be proven.

Atheism is not a religion. A religion is (loosely) a set of beliefs in the supernatural, perhaps tied together with a set of traditions. It would be true to say that you can define a group of people as "athiest", but it would be muddy language to call this group a religion. Atheism is no more a religion than baldness.

Atheism is not strictly the assertion that a God does not exist. But rather, it is the view that because God has not solidly been defined, that there is no evidence for the existence of a God, and that no convincing logical argument demonstrates the existence of God, to hold a belief in a God is not justified. You do not believe in Zeus for the same reasons that we do not believe in God.

Some atheists do take it a bit further and argue that "absense of evidence is evidence of absense". But at the core, atheism is simply non-belief, or a rejection of theist claims.

I am as keenly aware of the absence of proof as I am the existence of it, ...

Can you clarify what you mean here?

...and I don't need a cleric to educate me as to all the ways I have sinned in a world with God or without.

I don't think sin exists in a world without God? I'm not really sure about that. People can still certainly be assholes, though. ;p

Mostly, I am interested in the personal views of atheists and even the faithful who have ended up here. There is little point in speculating about a higher order or lack thereof if one cannot discern what it is made of.

I agree. But do note that if "one cannot discern what it is made of", then can you say you even hold a belief in it? What are you believing in?

There are plenty of things that I cannot define, so I don't live my life assuming that these things are true. However, a religious person cannot reciprocate this in kind if he doesn't define his god.

So when I show up challenging your faith or lack of it, please know that it is done in the spirit of greater understanding, not malice.

Good to know. In return, I assure you there is no malice in my post either. <3

That said, I leave all here with a simple question, to test faithful of any kind. What is the one observable law of the universe?

Well, there are quite a few... care to clarify?

[PickelledEggs]

What is the one observable law of the universe?

That is the absolute least thought out question I have heard all day.

Do me a favor. Google "scientific law" (i'm guessing that is what you mean by law of the universe) Anything that is a scientific law is so because it is observable. You're a big boy (girl?) now. You can do some of the work.

Other than that... welcome.

Well,  it's big yanno.

Oh yeah, that's sorta observable too. Never mind.  :)

who is yanno? Is that the guy in the painting from Ghostbusters 2?

Edit: no wait. that is Viggo...

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Crap, now I have to show evidence of yanno, the mythical creature most popular as You Know.. his nickname is yanno.  [-X

[PickelledEggs]

Crap, now I have to show evidence of yanno, the mythical creature most popular as You Know.. his nickname is yanno.  [-X

Who cares about yanno? He doesn't control a river of pink psycho-active goo. Viggo does. Viggo is the man.

[spoil:3jfksjua][/spoil:3jfksjua]

[Plu]

I don't agree because you are painting a picture where idiotic theists and idiotic atheists are equally numbered by use of your term "For every...". This is not true from my experience.

That's because you live in the US. It certainly holds true in the Netherlands. For every religious idiot here, we have an atheist idiot.

[PickelledEggs]

I don't agree because you are painting a picture where idiotic theists and idiotic atheists are equally numbered by use of your term "For every...". This is not true from my experience.

That's because you live in the US. It certainly holds true in the Netherlands. For every religious idiot here, we have an atheist idiot.

I thought you said you have a really low percentage of religious people though... or was that La Dolce Vita... Where really the only people that are religious are the farmers and they're in their own little world anyway?

[Plu]

Yeah maybe you can even say we have more atheist idiots than theist idiots. I certainly don't feel like a smaller percentage of the Netherlands is idiots compared to other places; it's just that our idiots are a little more educated and a little less religous about their stupid.

[PickelledEggs]

Yeah maybe you can even say we have more atheist idiots than theist idiots. I certainly don't feel like a smaller percentage of the Netherlands is idiots compared to other places; it's just that our idiots are a little more educated and a little less religous about their stupid.

I wasn't saying that. I was implying, with the 1:1 ratio being the same as the OP said, that you have a lot less religious AND atheist idiots. Leaving the rest regular, intelligent people.

[Mermaid]

there is no shortage of idiocy on either side of the religious fence. For every passage-pruning, preening parochial puissant there is an arrogant, avant-garde, atheist admonisher. I see little difference between the two. I see humans competing for dominance.

On this, we agree wholeheartedly. Kudos for using a word that I had to Google.  :)

What is the one observable law of the universe?

Er. There is only one?