You want to give him the first push? "Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People"
This is getting downright rude. State it would be "scripture" instead of religion. Due to the crap that televangelists put out, using the term "religion" is not a very good way to say what you mean. Those that can not comprehend the spiritual side of life are incapable of understanding...Stop wrestling with that jellyfish, it is futile. They will not understand until they have passed on because their minds are sealed shut
Where did I say "all around me"? Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LynnHarveyNyborg-Atheism-IQ.svg speaks a clear language. The smarter you are, the less likely it is you believe in a god. What does that tell you about yourself? "Most of the recent scientific studies have found a negative correlation between I.Q. and religiosity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
Current research, with sources and everything -> biggest doubts. 2000 year old book -> must be the absolute truth. I think the study is not that false after all. PS: If you understood science and logic, you would have been screaming at me that the study says nothing whatsoever about the IQ of a believer. A believer can have any IQ. It's just that statistically, non-belief only occurs with higher IQ. You had a perfect chance to get at me for making a false conclusion, if only you understood logic and science. But alas, you didn't and resorted to a cheap shot at the study itself by doubting its validity. Go figure.
What's the IQ have to do with believing on not? You go again and again and point at those poor lost souls in the meanders of faith so deep they "need" a "fatherly figure" for guidance, because they fear responsibility and it's much easier to blame it on "somebody out there in the sky". The scriptures are mere guidelines to improve someone's quality of life, they are not a set of "vengeful laws". The fact that some people who crave power and control use the scripture to suit their needs, that's another matter. And again we come down to education: usually the most "verbal" atheists come from "religious" family who had a parent or both that dragged the kid to church and started filling its head with churchianity crap, thus the kid rebelled against the action and became and atheist. Well, it's better to become an atheist rather than some "christ soldier" that starts a killing spree in the "name of god".
Yep, about two thirds of Humanity - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=authority experiments in psychology&t=ffnt Very real and very s**tty but I reckon that it is better now, than it historically used to be, due to longer and better education of huge number of people etc. etc.
Well, look at the study? That's oversimplified and fits your simple views. Atheism usually comes from a good education, because you learn the value of and how to actually do science. If there happens to be a rebellion involved, that's most likely to be coincidental. I don't know any atheist who became an atheist for the sole reason to spite their parents and didn't have other good reasons to do so. Let alone the atheists that didn't even have a religious background to begin with, which are ever growing in numbers. If you can think critically and logically, doubting any gods and seeing the whole picture of human behaviour over the course of history comes almost by itself. This is what the study is implying. If you can't think critically and logically, you have no chance to escape the religious dogma and your primal instincts.
Very sorry to say but agnosticism comes from proper education not atheism. Atheism is just as bad as theism, you can prove neither so believing in either is faith based, or stupidity based depending on how you want to look at it. And yes atheism is just as bad as theism ! Edit for ausernamenoonehas: Better to be ignorant than stupid, not knowing is a better claim than claiming to know the unknown.
Agnostic - First attested in 1870; coined by Thomas Huxley. From Ancient Greek ἄγνωστος (ágnōstos, “ignorant, not knowing”) Personally I prefer Latin - Ignoramus
I think you have your definitions mixed up. Atheism doesn't claim there is no god. Atheism claims there is no evidence for a god and no reason to believe in one. It's not a belief that the claim of the existence of a god is false. It's a disbelief that it's true. The prefix a- does not mean "anti, against", it means "without, not". If theism is the belief in a god, then atheism is "without the belief" or "not the belief", which doesn't imply "the belief that not". Agnosticism simply doesn't care either way and doesn't even think about the positions. Personally I think agnosticism is too weak. If you are a critical thinker, the existence of a god must have been subject of your thoughts at some point and you should have an informed opinion if religion's claims are true. Edit: In other words, if there is strong evidence that humans are evolutionarily predisposed to invent agents _and_ there are many contradicting religions _and_ there is no evidence to the contrary, then almost by default you have to assume an atheistic view, even if the agnostic view of "it cannot be known" holds true as well. But that's just my opinion.
Claiming there is no evidence is just as bad as saying there is evidence, don't you understand that ? No one knows !
The both are not equal. Acknowledging there is no evidence is not a claim that there will never be evidence. You are still thinking of the atheistic position as to be unshakable by evidence. It's not. It's just that no one has ever demonstrated any hard evidence and thus the atheistic position is the reasonable default. That's all. You need to think harder about the difference between "I believe there is no ..." and "I don't believe there is ...".
Ok one last time before I take your soul for the reaper! Is there evidence for a God, No ! Is there evidence that God is dead, No ! Is there evidence there is no God, No! So where are we, we are on the middle ground we don't know just sitting on the fence ! Your point about hard evidence is silly, you can say no one provided hard evidence for or against God, which means you are sitting on the fence, which is exactly what Agnosticism is about. Claiming that there will be evidence in future only fits if you have some evidence now which points in a particular direction and there is none.
Correct. There cannot be evidence for a negative. _That's_ why they are not equal! No. I didn't say that. You are imposing your false view on me that there could be evidence for a negative. I missed the little word "can". But still. The point holds that there cannot be evidence for a negative. Edit: If your little daughter comes home, knees all dirty, shoes muddy, hands dirty and you go outside into your garden and the flowers are all messed up and kicked down and you ask her "What did you do?" and she replies "I didn't. It was the neighbor's son." and the neighbor's son is not anywhere to be seen, what can you assume? Factually, you have no evidence that she did it. You have to be agnostic about whether you can ever know who kicked your flowers over. Right?