Why I'm an Atheist. By Ricky Gervais

[brandymac27]

Which is pretty much what I am saying. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying there's not enough information to say that it happened, and thus no real reason to believe it.

And, of course, the same drastic lack of data prevents me from ruling out the possibility, as we can with Jesus/Mithras, for example (from that set of data, anyway. Establishing the truth of Christianity does it indirectly, to some extent).

Yeah, this is pretty much where I stand too.

In other words, we seem to be arguing with each other while holding the same position.

It seems that way now. I misinterpreted your position earlier (go figure ) It seems we are in agreement on most of the issues we've been talking about.

What I would say is, in absence of any way to make a firm conclusion, we should let it lie and turn to areas we can make conclusions in.

I mean, as I have noted, we can't rule out the possibility that God created the universe 5 minutes ago either, but that doesn't mean we should believe it.

I completely agree. Anyway, this is weird. I feel like I should apologize for wasting your time

---------- Post added January-22nd-2011 at 12:55 PM ----------

I think the reason why I'm such a flip flopper on this issue is b/c I don't trust anything. I mean, even as a scientist I can say that science and technology have failed or let me down to some degree, and I feel like I can't trust anyone or anything. That makes it hard for me to have faith that there is Someone out there who won't let me down/always be there for me/etc.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I agree. I think this unfortunate situation happened because questions of spirituality have traditionally been viewed in a religious context.

In terms of divine revelation, isn't that like saying that something bad happened because discussions about car accidents have traditionally been viewed in the context of automobiles? Divine revelation is by definition religious.

As for personal experience, that seems more to do with the idea that someone's personal experience cannot be independently verified, as if independent verification makes something true.

It's interesting because even as I typed that last sentence it occurred to me that the Enlightenment model doesn't make anything true, nor trust worthy all it can really say is that something is repeatable, measurable. As for me if only the things that are repeatable and measurable are the standard for belief then it would seem that our world would be at a HUGE loss.

[NavyDave]

Why? Why do you have to respond this way? Why does everything have to be an insult?

Seriously NavyDave if you are making an argument for a faithful life in Christ then you are doing a very poor job of it, not because of the argument you make but in the way you treat others.

If expecting me to be Christ-like as in silent, a rollover for attacks on my religion and its principles that made this nation the greatest on earth then yeah its disappointment time.

Yeah like I should remain silent at the "I'm outraged response."

I treat practically everyone the same.

What part was an insult and not the truth? OK there are some people lacking taste buds or used to eating delicious challenged foods abroad.

Or do you mean the part about the acceptance of the wussification of 21st century man here and in England.

I could care less if an atheist wants to remain a member of the godless. Thats on them. Just as it will be a cold day in Hades before DC elects a republican mayor, you'll never see me going door to door or on a corner trying to persuade anyone to embrace God, Allah, Gaia, etc. However comma their agenda to push the Godless and secular progressive mantra will be met and countered.

[DRSmith]

If expecting me to be Christ-like as in silent, a rollover for attacks on my religion and its principles that made this nation the greatest on earth then yeah its disappointment time.

Yeah like I should remain silent at the "I'm outraged response."

I treat practically everyone the same.

What part was an insult and not the truth? OK there are some people lacking taste buds or used to eating delicious challenged foods abroad.

Or do you mean the part about the acceptance of the wussification of 21st century man here and in England.

I could care less if an atheist wants to remain a member of the godless. Thats on them. Just as it will be a cold day in Hades before DC elects a republican mayor, you'll never see me going door to door or on a corner trying to persuade anyone to embrace God, Allah, Gaia, etc. However comma their agenda to push the Godless and secular progressive mantra will be met and countered.

So preaaching something that is encourages in the bible you will not do?

But you will fight with people which contradicts what the bible teaches?

[alexey]

In terms of divine revelation, isn't that like saying that something bad happened because discussions about car accidents have traditionally been viewed in the context of automobiles? Divine revelation is by definition religious.

"divine revelation" is a way of interpreting a spiritual experience... a spiritual experience does not have to be religious.

As for personal experience, that seems more to do with the idea that someone's personal experience cannot be independently verified, as if independent verification makes something true.

Experience can be verified (somewhat) by brain imaging. Spiritual experiences exist. Different people subscribe to different answers about what's causing them.

[NavyDave]

So preaaching something that is encourages in the bible you will not do?

But you will fight with people which contradicts what the bible teaches?

I will gladly quote scripture with like minded people but no I'm not going to go up to strangers and behave like they are so stupid that they can not notice all of the churches, mosques, synagogues, in the area and assume they have not made a decision on their own to embrace a faith or not.

However if you mean defend the bible when someone wants to discredit the bible because it doesn't support the Sin they embrace then yeah I'm on it like two left feet on the abercrombieandfitch demographic.

[DRSmith]

I will gladly quote scripture with like minded people but no I'm not going to go up to strangers and behave like they are so stupid that they can not notice all of the churches, mosques, synagogues, in the area and assume they have not made a decision on their own to embrace a faith or not.

However if you mean defend the bible when someone wants to discredit the bible because it doesn't support the Sin they embrace then yeah I'm on it like two left feet on the abercrombieandfitch demographic.

Yet the bible teaches people to preach, if being aa Christian means imitating Jesus then would one not preach like Jesus did?

2 Timothy 2:23*Further, turn down foolish and ignorant questionings, knowing they produce fights. 24*But a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, keeping himself restrained under evil, 25*instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed; as perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, 26*and they may come back to their proper senses out from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him for the will of that one.

4 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is destined to judge the living and the dead, and by his manifestation and his kingdom, 2*preach the word, be at it urgently in favorable season, in troublesome season

[AsburySkinsFan]

If expecting me to be Christ-like as in silent, a rollover for attacks on my religion and its principles that made this nation the greatest on earth then yeah its disappointment time.

Yeah like I should remain silent at the "I'm outraged response."

I treat practically everyone the same.

What part was an insult and not the truth? OK there are some people lacking taste buds or used to eating delicious challenged foods abroad.

Or do you mean the part about the acceptance of the wussification of 21st century man here and in England.

I could care less if an atheist wants to remain a member of the godless. Thats on them. Just as it will be a cold day in Hades before DC elects a republican mayor, you'll never see me going door to door or on a corner trying to persuade anyone to embrace God, Allah, Gaia, etc. However comma their agenda to push the Godless and secular progressive mantra will be met and countered.

You know what....forget it.....you keep acting the way you do, and all you'll do is prove right their worst fears and cynicism regarding Christianity.

[PeterMP]

Evolution would produce such an ability because animals operate in a complex environment. There is a clear benefit in allowing the animal to select a particular behavior from several available behaviors.

More complex animals have more available behaviors and more executive function over them.

In that light, "Free Will" is not a thing that you either have or you do not. It is a continuum. A stink beetle has very little free will, if any. An aligator has a bit more free will. A rabbit has more free will, and so on.

Your redefining free will that is not compatibile with the way it has been defined historically or by the majority of people.

Others have tried to do the same:

"Now Dennett is advancing on free will. In ''Freedom Evolves,'' he wants to show how evolution can get us ''all the way from senseless atoms to freely chosen actions.'' And he succeeds in his aim, given what he means by freedom. But he doesn't establish the kind of absolute free will and moral responsibility that most people want to believe in and do believe in. That can't be done, and he knows it.So what does Dennett mean by freedom?

Well, he's a ''compatibilist'': he thinks that freedom is wholly compatible with determinism, although determinism is the view that everything that happens in the universe is necessitated by what has already happened, so that nothing can ever occur otherwise than it actually does. He thinks, in other words, that you can be wholly free and morally responsible for your choices and actions even if every single one of them was determined by events that happened long before your birth. You think this a strange notion of freedom? Me too."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson

Stochastic nature and complexity of the system gives you the illusion of free will, but it isn't what most people consider free will.

I can write computer programs that make "choices", and they even do so in non-predictable manners because the program has random variables that are part of it.

Essentially, nobody would argue that my program demonstrates free will.

There is no mechanism by which evolution can produce a decision making process that is not completely based on physiological state which is the result of a combination of factors (i.e. your genetic information and stochastic processes) the you have no control over.

Having more complexity in the processes that determine your physiological state don't change that.

[brandymac27]

You know what....forget it.....you keep acting the way you do, and all you'll do is prove right their worst fears and cynicism regarding Christianity.

Don't worry about it Asbury. I know you're intentions are good, but to be honest, nothing anyone has ever said has led me to doubt or have questions. It's more about trust issues with me. I'm sure others have their own personal reasons for doubting or questioning as well.

I'm not a Biblical scholar by any means, but I know enough to know that Christianity is about peace, love and kindness. So even if I have doubts, I don't think the message that Christianity sends can do any harm. And I also know enough to know that the things like Navy Dave said run completely contrary to what Christianity stands for and I take comments like that w/ a grain of salt, as I'm pretty sure most others do too.

[alexey]

Your redefining free will that is not compatibile with the way it has been defined historically or by the majority of people.

What is the way it has been defined historically?

Can we use that definition to put together a test for whether something/somebody has free will?

[Thiebear]

The funny thing is in the absence of god, there is nothing "wrong" with his comments. Nothing to be upset about, or disgusted by. There is no reason to believe that he has free will to control his comments.

He is just the product of the evolutionary information that he contains, which may or may not make him fit, and may or may not result in him producing fit off spring. Nothing more and nothing less.

For someone that can see the complexities within the universe. You simplify an atheist down to could kill without remorse, steal and lie? why not?

Might as well say if your Christian you can't be bad or create atrocities.

[techboy]

[

For someone that can see the complexities within the universe. You simplify an atheist down to could kill without remorse, steal and lie? why not?

Might as well say if your Christian you can't be bad or create atrocities.

You've missed the point entirely.

What PeterMP is pointing out is that a naturalistic world is totally determininistic, for reasons he laid out pretty well. A person in that kind of world doesn't have any real choice in how he acts (thus the phrase determinism).

Evil requires intent and choice, agency. A tsunami that kills a million people isn't "evil", and in a deterministic world, a mass murderer that kills a bunch of people isn't any different than a tsunami.

In a theistic world, on the other hand, an atheist has choice, and can be good, or evil, or both, just as the theist can.

It's not a question of what a person believes, it's a question of how the universe is set up.

[PokerPacker]

[

You've missed the point entirely.

What PeterMP is pointing out is that a naturalistic world is totally determininistic, for reasons he laid out pretty well. A person in that kind of world doesn't have any real choice in how he acts (thus the phrase determinism).

Evil requires intent and choice, agency. A tsunami that kills a million people isn't "evil", and in a deterministic world, a mass murderer that kills a bunch of people isn't any different than a tsunami.

In a theistic world, on the other hand, an atheist has choice, and can be good, or evil, or both, just as the theist can.

It's not a question of what a person believes, it's a question of how the universe is set up.

I've often contemplated the philosophy of determinism. I've decided that while we could very well be just moving ahead in time in a deterministic world (like characters in a movie, I suppose), it doesn't matter, because it is beyond our ability to observe. As far as we are aware, we have free will, and there is no reason to act differently as a result of supposed determinism (and if we did, that itself would be a result of determinism). Either way, its not something that should affect the way you view morality because our observance of the world is, to the best we as people (not necessarily as scientists), non-deterministic.

[alexey]

What PeterMP is pointing out is that a naturalistic world is totally determininistic, for reasons he laid out pretty well.

I did not notice him presenting any reasons... he just pointed at evolution/biology/DNA and said "see?" :pfft:

It's not a question of what a person believes, it's a question of how the universe is set up.

There is no way of knowing how the universe is set up... so it really is all about what a person believes (or how a person decides to think about it).

For example, a mass murderer that believes that he has no choice, he really has no choice. This is because he does not have the capacity to make a choice.

I am going to decide what I shall have for breakfast tomorrow. That decision may be written in a "book of deeds" that is located in another dimension. That decision may have already been made by another me in another universe. A supercomputer of the future may be able to calculate and predict what I shall decide. My ability to choose my breakfast may be an illusion... but that actually has very little effect on my decision making process.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Don't worry about it Asbury. I know you're intentions are good, but to be honest, nothing anyone has ever said has led me to doubt or have questions. It's more about trust issues with me. I'm sure others have their own personal reasons for doubting or questioning as well.

I'm not a Biblical scholar by any means, but I know enough to know that Christianity is about peace, love and kindness. So even if I have doubts, I don't think the message that Christianity sends can do any harm. And I also know enough to know that the things like Navy Dave said run completely contrary to what Christianity stands for and I take comments like that w/ a grain of salt, as I'm pretty sure most others do too.

I can appreciate that, get irritated because when someone is defending my faith they represent me as well (whether or not they mean to do so) because when someone else reads or hears them it begins to cast my faith with a shadow.

As Brennan Manning once said, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him with their life style. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

I know full well that I'm not perfect and I know that everyone on this board knows that too, and I know that the church is a people seeking refuge, and like all seeking shelter in a storm they come in all shapes, sizes and temperaments, not to mention differing levels of spiritual maturity, but when I see and hear meanness, and disdain from those professing the Christian faith I just can't help but find myself seriously disappointed.

[PeterMP]

I did not notice him presenting any reasons... he just pointed at evolution/biology/DNA and said "see?" :pfft:

I'm always happy to give links backing up my statements. I just assumed it was understood in this case.

We'll start with wikipedia, if that is okay with you:

"In generative philosophy of cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, free will is assumed not to exist.[69][70] However, an illusion of free will is created, within this theoretical context, due to the generation of infinite or computationally complex behaviour from the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters. Thus, the unpredictability of the emerging behaviour from deterministic processes leads to a perception of free will, even though free will as an ontological entity is assumed not to exist.[69][70] In this picture, even if the behavior could be computed ahead of time, no way of doing so will be simpler than just observing the outcome of the brain's own computations.[71]"

With references and everything.

My ability to choose my breakfast may be an illusion... but that actually has very little effect on my decision making process.

The problem is that if you don't believe in a god there is no reason to believe that you have free will.

As laid out from the above wiki quote, the nature of the complexity and emergent behavior of the system makes it unpredictable, but it is not truly free will.

There is no mechanism based on biology as we currently understand it that would produce free will.

Now, if you believe you only have the illusion of free will as compared to actually having free will you can make a good argument that it SHOULD affect your decision making.

---------- Post added January-22nd-2011 at 08:36 PM ----------

For someone that can see the complexities within the universe. You simplify an atheist down to could kill without remorse, steal and lie? why not?

Might as well say if your Christian you can't be bad or create atrocities.

I think techboy handeled this fine.

---------- Post added January-22nd-2011 at 08:40 PM ----------

I've often contemplated the philosophy of determinism. I've decided that while we could very well be just moving ahead in time in a deterministic world (like characters in a movie, I suppose), it doesn't matter, because it is beyond our ability to observe. As far as we are aware, we have free will, and there is no reason to act differently as a result of supposed determinism (and if we did, that itself would be a result of determinism). Either way, its not something that should affect the way you view morality because our observance of the world is, to the best we as people (not necessarily as scientists), non-deterministic.

A person that holds that no special entity exist that has made humans special beyond what can be produced via evolution most hold that our current understanding of biology is seriously flawed or that we do not have free will.

There is absolutely no reason for such a person to hold the same values and morality as other people.

[tyman21]

I typically take the "I feel bad for you" as a personal insult.

I say to them: Feel bad for yourself. If there's one major difference between atheists and believers is that we don't need anyone to feel anything for us. we're perfectly content with the notion we're on our own, and don't need any bull**** empathy from people who are saddened that we would rather rely on ourselves than the great ghost in the sky.

It's a sneer, a snide look down the nose. I usually don't like to be nasty in this debate, it never goes well, but if it boils right down to it, I feel bad for them.. their minds are trapped in this infantile fantasy of this great all powerful being that made everything with a twist of his nose, and that every answer is so easily explained by the presence of this divine being. Talk about retarding one's self...

So, nothing personal SS< but don't feel bad for me. There's absolutely no reason to. Feel bad for yourself in that you cant bring yourself to the courage to admit that the very concept of God is as flawed and illogical as any superstition. the only reason is can possibly stand up to is a sliding reason that has been created specifically to "prove" the existence of this non-existent thing.

~Bang

Boom! Completely agree.

[Fred Jones]

When you people die, please go to the light. This is after you rise up and look down upon yourself, prior to heading up the tunnel. You will then discover your true self. That indeed, God made you in his image, just not the image you see in the mirror. Unfortunately, you will also see what you have done. Jesus didn't die for your sins. God created the law of Karma. Everyone is accountable for their own sins.

Disagree if you like, but when you review your life, things will become more clear. And, it is all about Love, for God is Love. Like I just wrote in another thread, Jesus, with the Christ within him, condensed the Ten Commandments down to simply "what would Love do?". Well, Love does not kill, steal, covet, ect.

So, continue on your journey, and enjoy life.

[alexey]

I'm always happy to give links backing up my statements. I just assumed it was understood in this case.

We'll start with wikipedia, if that is okay with you:

"In generative philosophy of cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, free will is assumed not to exist.[69][70] However, an illusion of free will is created, within this theoretical context, due to the generation of infinite or computationally complex behaviour from the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters. Thus, the unpredictability of the emerging behaviour from deterministic processes leads to a perception of free will, even though free will as an ontological entity is assumed not to exist.[69][70] In this picture, even if the behavior could be computed ahead of time, no way of doing so will be simpler than just observing the outcome of the brain's own computations.[71]"

With references and everything.

I checked those references... They seem to have very little to do with the quoted point. Maybe I am missing something? The only connection that I see, which is also a recurring theme in your points, is this:

naturalism = determinism = no free will.

The "Free Will" wikipedia link you provided contains plenty of discussion about that, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#Physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#Compatibilism

The problem is that if you don't believe in a god there is no reason to believe that you have free will.

There are tons of reasons to think that one has free will. For example, thinking that free will exists may be necessary to help one realize their full potential.

As laid out from the above wiki quote, the nature of the complexity and emergent behavior of the system makes it unpredictable, but it is not truly free will.

There is no way of knowing that. Language in the quote talks about assuming that free will does not to exist.

There is no mechanism based on biology as we currently understand it that would produce free will.

There is no mechanism that would definitively deny free will either.

Now, if you believe you only have the illusion of free will as compared to actually having free will you can make a good argument that it SHOULD affect your decision making.

I think that I have free will because I have good reasons to think that way. So do you.

[PeterMP]

I checked those references... They seem to have very little to do with the quoted point. Maybe I am missing something? The only connection that I see, which is also a recurring theme in your points, is this:

naturalism = determinism = no free will.

The "Free Will" wikipedia link you provided contains plenty of discussion about that, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#Physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#Compatibilism

I'm not sure how the physics part helps you at all.

But as I've already pointed out compatbilism isn't really free will. Compatibillist have taken the meaning of free will and applied to something that nobody really thinks is free will (see the quote and link below; or the link to the NYT book review that I already posted):

I have a computer program. The first thing my computer program does is randomly select 0 or 1. It then gets the month from an external system (this would be like one of our senses that take in external information). It adds the number of the month to the randomly selected number. If the number is odd, it goes back to sleep for some randomly selected amount of time ranging from microseconds to days.

If the number is even, it goes on. It then selects a number randomly between 1 and 100.

Then there is a relationship between the number it picked, and the day of the week. If the day is Sunday, and the second number is 10 or less it responds with leave me alone and goes to sleep. If the number is greater than 10 it goes on.

If it is Monday, the samething is essentially done, but to go to sleep the number has to be 20 or less, and etc. for different days of the week.

If it goes on, there is then an interaction between the 0 and 1 it selected above, the number of the month (the external input that it had already taken in), and the number of the day of the week (Sunday = 1). If the result of the addition of the three numbers is odd, it reports that the day of the week is the day of the week using the name of the week (e.g. Sunday). If the result is even, it reports it based on the number of the day of the week (e.g. It is the first day of this week.).

Then it selects another 0 or 1. Repeats the same calculation as above, but using this new 0 and 1.

If the number is even, it then goes to sleep again for a random amount of time.

If it is odd, it goes on. It goes through a cycle of "learning" whether it is am or pm. It has 4 options:

1. It can look at the number of hour digits of the real time using military time. If there is 1, it is am (which we will encode for as a 0). If there are 2, it is a pm (encoded for a 1) (this approach will be right every time).

2. It can use the 0 or 1 it used the start of the process (0 = am; 1 = pm) (this will be right half the time on average).

3. It can externally get the time of sunrise for that day, and the time since or before sunrise for that day. If it is 7 hours since sun rise, then this method says it is pm. Otherwise, it says it is am (this will depend on the season of the year).

4. It can use whether it was am or pm the last time it checked the time (this being right will depend on how long it has last been since it actually checked).

Now, initially, we simply average all the results of our 4 methods up and if the result is less than <.5 the program "guesses" it is am. If it is 0.5 or more, it guesses it is pm. Then it actually checks if it is am or pm. It then "weights" the different methods so that they get more numbers added into the average the next time if they were right.

Let's say only, the first method was right. Then the next time, that one would get its answer factored into the average twice and all of the others only one (so our average is now a function of 5 numbers). Our program can also subtract the number of times each method gets its answer inserted into the average, but each method must at least put its answer into the average once (so if an method is at 1, then it won't go to 0).

We go through several iterations of this. At that time, the computer goes back to the process by which it "decided" if it was going to "learn" and repeats the process so it has the potential to go through multiple iterations learning, but it "remembers" what it learned (i.e. it will keep the weights from the prior iteration so it will improve if it immediately goes through the process again).

However, at some point, it will kick itself out (the above calculation will come back in a manner that causes it to go to sleep). Even while sleeping, it remembers the weights. The weights though do degrade in iterations in which it doesn't "decide" to learn, and the weights all degrade back to one as a function of the number of iterations with a random component based on the iteration (we can make it as a function of the very first variable we produced to determine if we were immediately going to go back to sleep or not (so it wouldn't JUST go back to sleep, it would degrade the weights and then go back to sleep for every iteration where it doesn't "learn")) so over time the program "forgets" if it doesn't keep "learning".

My program takes in external variables, there are interactions between external variables, it makes "decisions" where external variables play a role in the decisoin making, it "learns" as a function of practice, it "forgets" as a function of not practicing. It is essentially unpredictable as the most effeceint way to predict its behavior will be to watch its behavior.

Does my program have free will?

http://www.pedro-fonseca.com/en/philosophy/compatibilism.html

"There seems to be no inconsistency between having free will in this sense and living in a deterministic world. Ordinary computers, for instance, might be said to have free will in this sense. The only thing we need is a program that represents its own current desires, the actual states of the world, and ways to fulfil its desires. Then either the program ‘sees’ that it can fulfil his current desires, and then he may attribute to himself the property of being free, either he his prevented from doing that, and then he may say he is not free."

There is no way of knowing that. Language in the quote talks about assuming that free will does not to exist.

You mean just like you assume that a deity that would create humans specifically and specially doesn't exist?

They are using assume in the context of there is no evidence to support the possibility.

Scientists assume that there is a physical/natural explantion of quantum gravity.

(Because the other option is that it is that way because God made it that way. Scientists assume free will (in the manner that I am talking about) does not exist because the other option is that there is because God made it.)

There is no mechanism that would definitively deny free will either.

There's also no mechanism that excludes the possibility that CO2 currently causing climate change will simply decide to stop absorbing radiation, but if somebody made the claim that warming wasn't going to happen because of that, you and I would rightfully laugh at them.

I think that I have free will because I have good reasons to think that way. So do you.

Great.

What reasons do you have to think that you have free will in a sense that a computer or the program I described above do not?

[stevenaa]

I typically take the "I feel bad for you" as a personal insult.

I say to them: Feel bad for yourself. If there's one major difference between atheists and believers is that we don't need anyone to feel anything for us. we're perfectly content with the notion we're on our own, and don't need any bull**** empathy from people who are saddened that we would rather rely on ourselves than the great ghost in the sky.

It's a sneer, a snide look down the nose. I usually don't like to be nasty in this debate, it never goes well, but if it boils right down to it, I feel bad for them.. their minds are trapped in this infantile fantasy of this great all powerful being that made everything with a twist of his nose, and that every answer is so easily explained by the presence of this divine being. Talk about retarding one's self...

So, nothing personal SS< but don't feel bad for me. There's absolutely no reason to. Feel bad for yourself in that you cant bring yourself to the courage to admit that the very concept of God is as flawed and illogical as any superstition. the only reason is can possibly stand up to is a sliding reason that has been created specifically to "prove" the existence of this non-existent thing.

~Bang

So empathy born of genuine concern is insulting because you don't agree with the underlying premise? Let's make a comparison:

"I feel bad because you do not beleive in God, and I believe you will suffer as a result."

"I feel bad because your belief system is built on an infantile fantasy that there is a great ghost in the sky"

[Koala]

What a bunch of junk. Why do atheists so often think the stuff they write is in any way creative, useful, or insightful. Gervais's little article didnt contain a single point that every human on earth hasnt pondered a million times since the age of 5. Why did he feel the need to write that? My guess is a bloated sense of self-importance and desperate need for attention. I guess I would really really want to be important too, in this life, and desperate for attention, if I was sure that this life is all there is.

The basic point of all atheists is I cant see God see I dont think He exists. Well, they claim they dont think He exists. Ah, but when their hour of darkness strikes, guess who's name they all call out?

[Unforgiven]

I'm going to assume he wrote it for the same reason you bothered to reply to this thread, he thought he had something to add or someone might care.

Whether anyone agrees with him or you is up for debate.

[lavar1156]

Why are humans the only species that worship a God?

Maybe because we are meant to know that one exists...

When you wake up every morning and comprehend the fact that you have a life...your own self-awareness; are you telling me science gave you that capability?