RobbyPants

I am fairly offended that you feel you know my agenda for being here better than me, especially since I posted my reasons for being here no less than four different times when asked. As far as I can tell, everyone just assumes I'm lying. Maybe it's the red non-believer tag under my avatar, I don't know. That being said, if you, and two other moderators really don't want me posting here, I won't. A bit of advice for avoiding these types of confusion in the future: if only seekers are welcome and non-believers aren't, perhaps you should not allow non-believers in the ToS and get rid of the non-believer member group. The only reason I joined this site as opposed to any others were because the ToS specifically said non-believers could post in the designated areas. If you don't want non-believers posting, be more upfront about it, and they won't come.

I thought that around 75+% of Americans were Christian. That would be three Christians per each non-Christian.

I'd be sad to see the Apologetics and Faith Vs. Science forums go, but yeah, that layout confused me, too, when I first joined.

Science cannot measure faith in God. If they could, there would be no question God exists. This is true. I think it's a lot of why Stephen Jay Gould coined NOMA.

That depends on how you define "creationism". If creationism to you simply means "God created everything" with no other strings attached, then you could satisfy that with a Bible-literal view of creationism, with the big bang and evolution (having God be the "first cause"), or anything else in between. I know my wife accepts evolution and the big bang, yet I would still call her a creationist, because she believes all of the laws of physics and all of the matter were created by God, so the evolution and the big bang would simply be a carrying out of God's plan. So, under that definition, I would say yes, the model could change in light of new facts and evidence. If by creationism, you mean a more Bible-literal view, then I would say the model would only change so much as that it could still be gleaned from a literal reading of the Bible. I agree with you on this part, as well, although for me, it's more a matter of fairness and the First Amendment. I guess the latter wouldn't apply to you in Germany.

I'm sorry. When I read "disrespectful", I figured that would be anything insulting the believers, the beliefs, or God. I didn't feel I was being out of line. Also, I thought the Apologetics board was for discussion of apologetics. I'm glad we're clearing this up, but I hope you can understand how my reading of the ToS and Botz's post made me think my manner of posting was within the site's boundaries. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out, later.

Well, yes, I know that's the nature of the site, but the site is partitioned into several areas: namely, the Inner and Outer Court. When I joined, I read a posted by one of the moderators, Botz: (emphasis, mine) So, while I understand the nature of the site is ministry, I came to the Outer Court in good faith to discuss my stance directly with people to learn more about theirs. The reason I am here and not somewhere else is I wanted to discuss beliefs that I don't hold with people who hold them, rather than read about there elsewhere, where there is no one to better explain their stance. I can assure you that I am not here for my own amusement at other people's expense; just to have good discussion with others who would like to do the same. Was my understanding of Botz's post incorrect?

When I first joined, I read the ToS (to make sure non-believers posting was permitted), and a thread sticked at the top called From what I gathered in that thread, the purpose of the OC was for believers to explain and defend their beliefs to non-believers. It was that first point that Botz posted that made me think it was okay to explain my side of things. If you are specifically referencing my post to Enoob57, I said what I said, because when he said that he "would not put on my shoes", that tells me he is unwilling to consider my point of view, whereas I am considering both. I certainly don't expect him to accept my point of view, but if he won't consider it, then it is impossible to carry on a discussion. Personally, I feel I have been polite and courteous, as per the ToS, I haven't used profanity or specifically been disrespectful to God or believers. No, I don't think that would work, even if it were my purpose. I have two main purposes here: 1) I wanted to find a place where I would find differing points of view. It is one thing to read about what others believe, and it is another thing to be able to actually discuss with them their beliefs. I think it is more productive for me to gain a better understanding. 2)When I see any misconceptions about certain things (what the word "atheism" is or means, for example), I like to try to clear it up. Also, I can give my own anecdotal point of view in any of the threads that are specifically directed toward non-believers.

What other means are you talking about?

Sorry, I saw your post right after I made my last one. I understand why Christians would use scripture as a basis for their beliefs. My point is that the question is "does atheism make sense", and the Bible says "no, it's foolish"; however, asserting that to people that don't accept the Bible as the supreme authority of truth is less than compelling. Does that make more sense? I wasn't trying to say that quoting scripture is bad or improper, but rather, that it's not compelling to someone who doesn't innately accept it as truth.

What if someone (here or elsewhere) told you about Allah being the one true god? Once you knew, would you be responsible for being a good Muslim to avoid Muslim-Hell? I'm not saying that you don't believe in scripture, and I understand that the majority of posters here do; that being said, this is the "Outer Circle". This place is specifically a place for the posters to explain their beliefs to non-believers and seekers, and to defend their beliefs from skepticism. That being said, you accept the scripture being true as an assumption that you cannot assert without circular reasoning. Therefore, if I don't make that assumption, I won't consider it a valid conclusion. I'm not saying you're wrong, but that you are asserting your own beliefs as true to answer a question as to whether or not a different belief system "makes sense".

I was like that too, for a long time. I wouldn't consider any idea that would lead to the conclusion of God not being real. I totally get that.

This is true that induction is technically not possible; however, if we take care what we induce, and try to assume as little as possible, science has totally delivered us things like spaceships, supercomputers, and all sorts of medical marvels. So, we can say we can't actually know what science says we know, and we can still deliver some rather amazing results. Just because the underlying fabric of it all is (currently?) unknowable doesn't mean that we have to consider the method itself to be problematic, or that we have to start making assumptions about how it works. We've delivered the results we have precisely because we kept delving deeper to get a better understanding, rather than to assume that the current gap in our knowledge must be something inherently unknowable or unprovable. Maybe this will be something we can never know or prove, and maybe not. I just don't see why we should default all of physics and logic working the way it does to God.

You are asserting you are correct by simply stating that you are correct. There is no evidence that we all know God other than you saying that we all do. Also, I do not worship myself. Quoting scripture in a thread titled "Does Atheism make sense" does not make sense to me. Would you take me seriously if I quoted the Quran in a thread titled "Does Christianity make sense"?

But that goes both ways, doesn’t it, Robby? In order to postulate an exclusively naturalistic view of the universe, you must have FAITH in nature, don’t you? And that’s not all: you must also have faith in yourself. Because I still didn’t receive any answer to one of my old questions in this forum: why does any atheist think (s)he will EVER understand the universe (let alone now)? What’s the basis for such an expectation? Until you have an answer to that question, please don’t claim you DO understand the universe: because you have no basis for that. You must reasonably conclude if the universe is understandable in the first place. I postulate a naturalistic world view, because there are a lot of parts of it that we do understand, so there's no compelling reason to fill any of those gaps with God (or Allah, the FSM, fleems, or anything else). That being said, your approach to this and mine are not the same. I do not dogmatically believe in evolution. If evolution were definitively proven to be false, I would happily drop it, and if a better model were offered in its place, I would happily adopt that. That's what science is. It changes when the evidence changes, or new evidence becomes available. Your position, however, relies an a dogmatic assumption of certain truths, and then a systematic attack on anything that runs counter to those truths. I have seriously never seen anyone other than you, and one other person here, posit that gravity does not exist. So, I wouldn't consider this a "cutting both ways".