Am I an athiest?

[(author) Katelyn]

Oh, and btw, he's my STEP-dad. My bio dad didn't care about me, his son, or the woman he got pregnant. Thank you.

[Interbane]

What is this, Kindergarden? My dad could kick ur dad's butt? Maybe, maybe not. But y'all have been childish from the start.

It was sarcasm, sorry. Your previous sentence was just as childish, thus the sarcasm. Faith is not the same as knowledge. Christianity isn't true simply because you're certain it's true. If it could be shown by looking at history that the tales in the Bible are true, then what need is there for faith? The difference is in the words you're using. You believe Christianity is true, but you cannot know it unless you have justification. A good place to start if you wonder whether you have justification is to ask a simple question. Can we trace the Bible back to the people who wrote it, to make sure no one changed it since then? The answer is far more complex than you may think, but you should find it yourself by studying both sides of the argument rather than just the side you believe. Don't trust my answer, but don't trust your parents either, just find out for yourself.

I just simply stated my beliefs and y'all attacked me.

We didn't attack you. We attacked your beliefs. They are not you, as hard as that may be to understand. They are a possession, a reflection of the world within your head.

You know, God could kick this whole universe to nothing, but He doesn't. Why? He loves you, though I don't understand why He loves anyone. We don't deserve it.

If there were a god, why did he condemn me to hell?

[tat tvam asi]

Poor kid, it sucks being on that side of the great delusion. It was ultimately trying to argue against an atheist in favor of the existence of God that brought me around to realizing that the whole concept is delusional. I was 15 when that happened. He really pissed me off in that argument, I was furious. But I couldn't get what he said out of my mind: "God and religion were created by humans because we're afraid of dying."

I wanted to argue against that, but there's no valid argument to make. All I had were a few half ass self reaffirming apologies in my mind that I could tell were bogus the more I thought about it. Really, the more you think about it the more obvious it becomes if you're willing to take on honest look at the big picture. We have the fossil evidence of primitives slowly developing burial ceremonies, and religious practice. It's a harsh pill to swallow as a youth but I think it's healthy to sit back and really question things. Do you believe in God because it's a proven truth, or because it's what you want to believe right now???

[(author) Katelyn]

I'm not afraid to die. I will be with Jesus when I do. You cannot blame God. You blame Adam and Eve. Once they sinned, it passed on to every human. Hell was originally created for the devil and his angels. Yeah, it stinks, but there is nothing I or you can do about it. Why did Darwin pray? Why did he say he felt the flames? Wow, musta been tough for HIM to say, considering he was the one who said God didn't exist and we all came from apes that turned into cavemen then into us. Now that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Y'all keep telling me, "Look at the big picture." "Look at your faith, its crazy." "You should look more into it.". But you know what I think? You probably don't, but since I have already given my opinion more than once, I'll give it to you again. You need to check out YOUR faith. No God? Ha, sorry but I'm not the one living in delusion. YOU ARE. I believe in this b/c I know, 100%, that my God is real. He does more for me everyday. Sometimes I don't even realize it. I wake up every morning. I go to bed every night. He gave me inspiration for a story, a story that WILL make my career. A story I pray will make to the best-sellers list. We shall see. Who knows? Maybe oneday I'll write a book on this. During the hurricane Irene, He kept me and my family safe, even when a tree fell over. Grandma's neighbors tree looked like it was going to topple on the house. But it didn't. There was a tornado sometime around April, and it tore through the side by Grandma's house. We could have been killed. We all could have died. But we didn't. We were fine. Not coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Only Devine Intervention. And no, your 'fossils' are not true. Pictures of those 'fossils' prove to me there never was monkey/man. Nope. The pictures I see either look like a complete monkey, or a complete man. Sorry, but as I said you should take a look at your religion. Step back and see the bigger picture. Even Darwin concluded we didn't come from monkeys, so why are people being brainwashed in schools? Answer that. You all think I'm brainwashed, but really the only ones brainwashed are you. Darwin said HIMSELF that it was impossible to come from monkeys, as he had earlier figured. Wow, tough I know. Hard pill to swallow, huh? But it is the honest truth. And if you compared your faith to mine, who knows what you would find. God bless.

[tat tvam asi]

I'm not afraid to die. I will be with Jesus when I do.

Perhaps you misunderstood.

a) ancient man = fear of death (unknown).
b) Myths are created = solution to fear.
c) Organized religions = spreading solution.
d) You, think you're not afraid of dying because you've been conditioned to think that you'll be with a mythological savior after you're dead.

And underlying it all is the original fear of death common to human beings. You tend to cling to the mythology because without it you loose the security of thinking that you know what will happen after you're dead, when you really don't know.

Y'all keep telling me, "Look at the big picture." "Look at your faith, its crazy." "You should look more into it.". But you know what I think? You probably don't, but since I have already given my opinion more than once, I'll give it to you again. You need to check out YOUR faith. No God? Ha, sorry but I'm not the one living in delusion. YOU ARE. I believe in this b/c I know, 100%, that my God is real.

We're saying look at the big picture because we were once like you and know what it's like between a larger view of it all and where you're at right now. You're in a very narrow view at the moment, one that can open out dramatically. You don't seem to understand the history and evolution of religious myth and it's concepts. Each of the mythological things you've listed have a rich history as evolving concepts, created by man, which have changed over time to become what you're trying to preach at us right now. And the very reason you're posting in this thread and responding to atheist critique of God and religion is because you're NOT actually secure in it. If you were very secure with it then you would have stopped posting long ago. You're obsession with trying to wrap your mind around Darwinian Evolution is a tell tale sign that you're trying to fight against a doubt that has entered your mind about creationism. I'm sure it will play out over time...

[Dexter]

During the hurricane Irene, He kept me and my family safe, even when a tree fell over. Grandma's neighbors tree looked like it was going to topple on the house. But it didn't. There was a tornado sometime around April, and it tore through the side by Grandma's house. We could have been killed. We all could have died. But we didn't. We were fine. Not coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Only Devine Intervention.

Why did your God slaughter other people's nice Grandmas?

[Interbane]

You cannot blame God. You blame Adam and Eve.

Baloney. If there were such a mythical duo, why the heck did god put them in a garden with delicious fruit that was off-limits as well as his arch-enemy? If I were in that situation, I'd eat the pomegranate. So would you. So would any person. That's how a normal human would respond, and it's not because of sin. It's because of the way we are(the way god made us, if you will).

Besides, it's pretty decietful to make the eternal suffering of every human to ever exist from that point depend on the eating of a fruit. That's like saying, "Well, you broke the speed limit, so you and every single decendant of your until the end of time will suffer." There are parts within the Santa Claus stories less fantastical than this!

It's a story meant to make us feel better about ourselves. Imagine that we were once immortal! Imagine if the universe were created as our playground! It is a fun, desirable fantasy.

[(author) Katelyn]

I'm sorry, but I think y'all happen to be very crazy. Maybe God took those grandma's b/c they were ready to be with Him. Maybe they weren't Christians but their time had come. Sorry, I cannot explain it best. As I said before, call my youth pastor and ask to talk to our pastor. He will explain and give you a chance to explain your theory.

[johnson1010]

I'm not afraid to die. I will be with Jesus when I do. You cannot blame God. You blame Adam and Eve. Once they sinned, it passed on to every human.

Did I ever show you my invention “The box of un-ending torture and punishment for dogs”? Nobody is responsible for anything they did not do.

Why did Darwin pray? Why did he say he felt the flames? Wow, musta been tough for HIM to say, considering he was the one who said God didn't exist and we all came from apes that turned into cavemen then into us. Now that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Darwin prayed because he was a religious man. He never said god doesn’t exist, and you would know that if you read anything from Darwin, or from people who write about Darwin who actually have studied the man.

Surely you’ve heard of Wikipedia? It would be a simple matter for you to look up these things for yourself.

Darwin's family tradition was nonconformist Unitarianism, while his father and grandfather were freethinkers, and his baptism and boarding school were Church of England.[17] When going to Cambridge to become an Anglican clergyman, he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible.[22] He learned John Herschel's science which, like William Paley's natural theology, sought explanations in laws of nature rather than miracles and saw adaptation of species as evidence of design.[24][25] On board the Beagle, Darwin was quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality.[149] He looked for "centres of creation" to explain distribution,[46] and related the antlion found near kangaroos to distinct "periods of Creation".[48]
By his return he was critical of the Bible as history, and wondered why all religions should not be equally valid.[149] In the next few years, while intensively speculating on geology and transmutation of species, he gave much thought to religion and openly discussed this with Emma, whose beliefs also came from intensive study and questioning.[82] The theodicy of Paley and Thomas Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws which had an overall good effect. To Darwin, natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design,[150] and he could not see the work of an omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering such as the ichneumon wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs.[126] He still viewed organisms as perfectly adapted, and On the Origin of Species reflects theological views. Though he thought of religion as a tribal survival strategy, Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver.[151][152]

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the superiority of women to men (evolution was a male-male competition over women, she chooses him), and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.

If evolution is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard, then why don’t you lay out what exactly it is you imagine is wrong with the theory. If you go ahead and admit you know nothing at all about it, I would be happy to try to explain it to you in a serious way.

I believe in this b/c I know, 100%, that my God is real.

Explain exactly how you reached this conclusion. What evidence do you have to justify your belief, transforming it from “belief” to “knowledge”.

During the hurricane Irene, He kept me and my family safe, even when a tree fell over. Grandma's neighbors tree looked like it was going to topple on the house. But it didn't. There was a tornado sometime around April, and it tore through the side by Grandma's house. We could have been killed. We all could have died. But we didn't. We were fine. Not coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Only Devine Intervention.

You display a fundamental lack of empathy.

And no, your 'fossils' are not true. Pictures of those 'fossils' prove to me there never was monkey/man. Nope. The pictures I see either look like a complete monkey, or a complete man.

Explain what you mean by “not true”. Because that sentence looks like nonsense.
Before we can take your assessment of what is monkey, and what is man seriously, explain what exactly a monkey is, and what exactly a human is, and explain the difference between them.

If you start down that path you will find very quickly that every diagnostic trait of monkeys describes us as well, but that monkeys lack diagnostic traits of humans. The reason for that is that we are part of a nested phylogeny that branched off from basal primates which fit the description “monkey”. Then we evolved traits which make us a very specific kind of monkey to the point that simply calling us monkeys no longer does a thorough job of describing us.

Why do you suppose that these readily observed similarities exist, Katelyn? Why do all species neatly fit into their subfolders, or clades, with diverse life forms continually fitting into the same folder as you get farther back in their heritage?

If god magically created any creature, then there should be a definitive line to be drawn which indicates that that creature is in no way related to any other creature of a different species. Name that created species, Katelyn.

Even Darwin concluded we didn't come from monkeys, so why are people being brainwashed in schools? Answer that.

Linean taxonomy was mostly based on observation but in some instances it was based on preference. There were no strict rules of adherence for the classification of life forms. That’s why cladistics is a superior method of classification, where genetics, morphology, and developmental observation determine the placement of an organism into the tree of evolution, not anyone’s slanted preference.

Preferences which lead to groups of animals being lumped together in polyphyletic groups. Meaning, there were two groups of monkeys, old world and new world monkeys, assumed to have evolved separately but to identical descriptions, and then there were the anthropoid or human-like great apes, also assumed to have evolved separately with no convergeance in the past to create 3 different whole lineages of creatures which share identical spots in the evolutionary tree such that they really could all be grouped together.

Darwin would have grown up hearing that there was a difference between pongates and cercopitheans but the reality is that polyphyletic groups don’t happen in evolution, and that the "pongo" family was an invention of special pleading with no real basis in reality.

Anthropoid means having human like features, so we could hardly exclude humans from any group you name anthropoid. It was a special pleading attempting to say all of the things of this kind, except for us. But clearly, if you need to say “except for us” then you know we belong in that group. The special pleading was enacted specifically to try to cut humans out of their obvious place in the tree of life on the grounds that we just really WISH that we were special.

But we aren’t.

[johnson1010]

Below is an example of a monophyletic lineage.

The one we occupy in fact.

ORDER PRIMATES
_Suborder Strepsirrhini: non-tarsier prosimians
_Suborder Haplorrhini: tarsiers, monkeys and apes
__Infraorder Tarsiiformes
__Infraorder Simiiformes
____Parvorder Platyrrhini: New World monkeys
_______Family Callitrichidae: marmosets and tamarins
_______Family Cebidae: capuchins and squirrel monkeys
_______Family Aotidae: night or owl monkeys (douroucoulis)
_______Family Pitheciidae: titis, sakis and uakaris
_______Family Atelidae: howler, spider and woolly monkeys
____Parvorder Catarrhini
_______Superfamily Cercopithecoidea
__________Family Cercopithecidae: Old World monkeys
_______Superfamily Hominoidea
__________Family Hylobatidae: gibbons
__________Family Hominidae: great apes, including humans


there is more to be had on this subject.

check here so as not to clutter up this thread too much with off-topic specifics.

http://www.booktalk.org/post96663.html#p96663