Dantedasz:


Brilliant write up.
Quite frankly Religion is geographical,so where you are born will most likely determine your religious beliefs. Most people have been brainwashed and mind controlled from infancy,such that for them to even have a conversation with an atheist scares them to death.
Religious people are mostly intelligent people,until it comes to religion. That is the point where they shut down all forms of intelligence and become mindless,non rational sheep. They see errors in their religious books but choose to turn a blind eye because the book was purportedly written under the inspiration of a god.

The bolded has always been my argument!

kingxsamz:


A lot of sense in this...
The one that gets me every time is when Christian folks ask you to prove that God doesn't exist. Like, how do you disprove something that hasn't been proven?
Most Christians can't tolerate those whose views don't go in line with theirs.
Most of them wouldn't want to associate with an atheist simply because he doesn't believe in their god.
Another thing is that, I feel most of these Christians do have doubts about God's existence. But due to the fear of burning in an eternal flame, they choose not to allow those thoughts surface.
I remember back in 2017, I always hated and avoided CAPSLOCKED and HopefulLandlord's posts, simply because I felt they were telling the truth. I felt that, if I should give in to their logic, I might realize the truth.
Religion tends to keep one in darkness by instilling fear in you.

True sir.
The moment you start questioning a particular doctrine or statement in your religion, they will say you have lost faith.
So people tend to accept most of these indoctrinations rather blindly than take the path that would "question" their faith.
..
But that is NOT a wise option.
Because even in science, theories which were once accepted, were later deemed to be false or rather obsolete.
Examples can be found in this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science

LordReed:
I am begin to form the opinion that theists deliberately misconstrue atheist position because they think if they accept an understanding of it they'll become atheists. I think it betrays a fear of losing their faith, a fear that the devil will steal their souls and doom them to hell.

Exactly sir. This is the reason they term atheists as "freethinkers" because they feel that agreeing to any statement made by an atheist supposedly tampers with their faith and belief so they see it as pure blasphemy mainly because they want to avoid "eternal punishment".

I have watched from the sidelines, long enough to see and read about quite a number of misconceptions regarding atheists —and atheism in general.
So I've decided to create an account to address some of these.
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Yesterday's post about a young banker who commited suicide, quickly changed to an argument —or rather, dialogue— between theists and non-theists simply because a user "ProfAmaben" stated that "life is hard and as an atheist, he doesn't support the suicide because this is the only life we have."
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Now, several users (who are theists) had issues with this statement. Their reason? Because, "If it is the only life we have, then you have every reason to support his act as an atheist. If this is the only life we have, then what difference does it make when he dies since he will be unconscious forever? Everybody should just commit suicide and go into extinction since this is the only life we have." This was according to Humanoid01 whose response was basically what all theists, particularly the Christians were trying to point out.
Now, this leads to the first misconception; That atheists should not value life since it is limited to "being only able to live once" therefore, rendering it meaningless in every possible way.
However, this is nothing but a mere fallacy.
Why should I take life for granted when I know that I possess no extra life or an unproven afterlife? Isn't that an apparent reason to live and enjoy the particular one I have until I'm satisfied with it?
It's like saying that a man limited to just one car shouldn't maintain and enjoy his ride because whether he maintains it or loses it, it won't matter since he only has one car. You see how dumb the analogy is? This is because the man would definitely try to utilize his car to the fullest because he knows that he has no provision for another one.
This is the same thing with how Non-theists visualize life. That since we have no other option of life elsewhere, the best we could do is maxing out the enjoyments and benefits of the current one we possess instead of just fruitlessly calling it quits... So Mr. Humanoid01, we can't just commit suicide and go into extinction because that would definitely be absurd and silly.. It's like saying I should kill all dogs and make them extinct simply because they don't have a "soul" like your religion says which differentiates them from theists. It wouldn't make any sense sir.
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This leads to the question most theists bring forth: Since you do NOT believe in heaven or hell, then what is the purpose of "being good"?
This always makes me laugh. To avoid long talks, I will define Secular humanism according to Wikipedia:
"It posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God, it neither assumes humans to be inherently evil or innately good, nor presents humans as "above nature" or superior to it."
In simpler terms, humans DO NOT need religion to determine what is good or bad as Morality was already in place before religion.
For instance, in the Catholic doctrine, a 14year old girl is viable for marriage (you can google this) and in Islam, we have seen situations where children younger than 12 years of age have already been made wives.
This brings us back to the question of being good when there is supposedly no supernatural profit or punishment if I chose to be good or bad.
Now, I don't need religion to tell me that this is wrong —as it has already supported it in a way— but what I need, is my legal constitution, conscience and moral orientation that assures me that any age less than 18 years is nothing but paedophilism and child abuse.
So my answer is simple: The secular humanism engraved in me would not allow me to be unjust or evil towards my fellow humans simply because I do not believe that I would be punished by any supernatural being but because I want them to enjoy life to the fullest just like me, in all fairness and Equality too because I am vying for something more like "self fulfillment and happiness."
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A third assumption that Atheists are ignorant set of beings who think "they are knowledgeable" but actually knows nothing is simply petty and false.
Most atheists were like you, born into a religious home. After series of analysis, we can absolutely conclude that the absence of a deity is in our own sense, definitely true.
Now, certain theists would tell us to prove this. When we argue that you can't prove something that doesn't exist, they tend to fire back with this question: "Since you can't prove that God doesn't exist, then how did you prove that he does not?"
A certain user on this forum has on one occasion, made it clear that "Since X is false, it doesn't mean that Y is true".
Humans believe that Dinosaurs and Mammoths once existed because their fossils are available, but we also believe that Dragons and Unicorns are mere fantasies because their is NO proof of their existence therefore, pushing them to the realms of pure fiction.
So as a Non-theist, My idea of God or Gods lie in the same place I put a Santa-Claus with a flying deer-chariot and a tooth fairy and werewolves —as pure fiction. This fantasy was made to give us some sense of false hope, fear or, simply to put us in check of our actions..
Therefore, because atheism has through logical reasoning and scientific research and evidence, proved that it's reason of being true is greater than the hypothesis that theism provides which only dwells on faith, belief and books written by humans without any tangible proof, then I choose to be an atheist.
P.S: Not all atheists are scientifically literate though.
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Fourth misconception: That atheists worship Satan or the devil
This is definitely one of the greatest fallacy regarding atheism!
It has already been made clear that "Atheism is the absense of belief in the existence of a deity, supernatural being or higher power". So stating that an atheist is a person who practices Satanism or worships the Devil is absolutely false as the two have nothing in common.
Satanism involves ideologies and philosophies based on Satan who is a deity (or the God of Satanists) therefore, making it totally different from atheism which believes in the absence of a God.
Most people think atheism involves only the rejection of the Christian God or Islamic God. This is false as atheism REJECTS all belief in any God or Gods whether Christian, Islam, Buddhist, Rastafari, Jainism, Judaism or the many other religions of the world.
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Atheists do not tolerate theists:
I have noticed that this statement is accepted by a lot of people even on this forum. People with religious beliefs think we are intorelant towards them because of their religious affiliations. Well, I beg to disagree.
If truth be told, we would notice that it is actually the other way round.
When I say I'm an atheist, the response I get is that "I would die and go to hell if I don't accept Christ", "I am blasphemous", "No one asked and no one cares if I'm atheist or not", "That I'm atheist is not their business as long as I will regret my decision for not believing in their God after dying and meeting this God during judgment in the after life.
I find these statements not only intorelant but also hateful.
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A fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence ... The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability — that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience.
This is the basis for Atheism.

I don't know if I tackled these misconceptions well enough since I used basic words and simple English but, I feel that certain fallacies had to be addressed. Whether it changes certain orientations or makes zero difference is not my problem.
The Idea is to reduce the propagation of fallacies spreading on this forum and to promote simple coexistence.
We should not forget that online arguments have no winner or loser. It's either one accepts a particular belief or Not.
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Kingxsamz, CAPSLOCKED, Hakeem4, IamMichael, MJBOLT... Any error here?

This is not feasible in this failed country..
Afterall, we've observed on countless occasions where a 14 year old student with 300+ as jamb score, fails to be offered admission into a tertiary institution because they are not up to 16 yet... Well, unless they have some "currencies and high contacts"..