It seems they place rationality above everything else, and consider it very important that others should see it the same. There’s a bit of a problem when you start believing irrational things with no evidence, because even a small step in that direction opens the door for someone to come along and fill your head with all kinds of silly and dangerous ideas. If you’ve seen what the result of that can be, you can be rather… motivated to evangelize your particular anti-religious point of view. I think for those people, it’s not arrogance, it’s more fear and a genuine desire to stamp out something they see as a serious problem in society (irrationality). And given many people can’t balance their checkbook, I wish anyone luck trying to convince them not to believe in silly things.

And the “arrogant” atheists I’ve talked to just don’t want to admit that we don’t know God doesn’t exist. “A negative data point is a valid data point, and so since we’ve looked for God and seen no evidence, it’s valid to say there is no God” is an argument I’ve heard. But even most people on the forum I was on admitted they couldn’t disprove God.

Another interesting thing I found was a mixing up of terms. Many of the athests on these boards are what most people would call agnostic. They called themselves “Agnostic Atheists”, stating that if you weren’t sure whether God existed or not, that’s the default position to take. Kind of like how there is moral, amoral and immoral, there is theist, atheist and non-theist.

As for “All I ever see is arrogant atheists”, being more obvious and visible doesn’t make them more numerous. It’s the same fallacy which makes some people think it’s more dangerous to fly than to drive, because plane crashes make more of an impression than car crashes. Or, for that matter, to make non-christians see Christians as more similar to televangelists than they really are

One atheist is a colleague of mine at work. We know for a fact that, on Saturday nights, he goes over to his local church and whips eggs at it. Therefor, on Sunday, the church-goers will have their holy building desecrated and covered in eggs. When we ask him why he does it, he responds “Because they are stupid lemmings”. Maybe it’s just because I’m Christian, but I find that to be the supreme definition of an arrogant asshole.

Another Atheist is my friend. He knows I’m Christian, and he doesn’t care. Instead of arguing over our beliefs, we periodically share our points of view. He doesn’t look for arguments, nor does he spend all his time on online forums attempting to persuade other people his beliefs are better. He’s just a person, living his life, trying to find peace with other people around him.

Here, we have two individuals, same basic belief set (or lack thereof). They both have completely different behavior. Unfortunately, from what I’ve been seeing, the majority of Atheists fall into the first category.

BTW, isn’t the primary concern NOT whether there is a God or not, but rather how we live our lives? Isn’t “Is religion a good thing or bad” more about what it does or doesn’t do in practical everyday terms? Religion, in general, provides a philosophical basis for many, and they can use it to blow up the WTC or feed the hungry. Therefore, it’s really about what YOU DO,not necessarily what you believe, whether atheist, theist, or agnostic. If you practice the Golden Rule,a good common sense sociologically sound practice that benefits the whole group,then it doesn’t matter what you or your neighbor believes. It matters how you practice your beliefs.

You can’t handle that stuff, but you presume to make a judgemnt about FAIRIES. Jeez.

BTW, If you accept “People are Stupid” then the world makes a lot more sense.

An agnostic Christian? As in, “I’m [i]fairly[/i] sure God was made flesh and executed so that my sins could be washed away by his blood… but, hey, certainty’s an arrogant thing!”?

Well. Religion is not science. That’s true. But you seem to be dividing the world into “science”, covering everything from biology to archaeology to economics, and “religion”, meaning those things that aren’t rigorously tested and debated.

Religion, by the way, is not synonymous with God. Since the masses of information and understanding we’ve earned over the millennia point to iron-age mythology being claptrap, it’s likely that, even if there is a God (unlikely), it would not at all be a God we can relate to. We are, after all, only human, and our perception of Him would always be rather weak.

Pedro, mate: great summary. But we know it’ll change nothing. Our sin as atheists, it seems, is being “arrogant” enough to use empirical evidence to create a coherent world-view.

Sigh. Must we go there again?
Can you prove that Thor doesn’t exist? See? You can’t.

But you don’t have to. Because the burden of proof is on the side of those who say that something does exist. Especially when the claim is extraordinary… say, “there is an invisible, undetectable, omnipotent being”.

That’s the problem: Religion is not science. As a matter of fact, YOU CAN’T ARGUE EITHER WAY. Arguing that God does not exist merely because He doesn’t show Himself is as arrogant as claiming that God must exist because of some random metaphysical logic.

I’m an agnostic Christian, by the way, and just as offended by closed-minded Christians claiming to be able to »prove« God’s existence as by closed-minded Atheists accusing Christians to be irrational because a scientific proof does not exist. (Yes, that’s you. And if you don’t think being an agnostic Christian is possible, you don’t know enough about Christianity to argue against it.)

Rev,

[quote post="111"]Why do atheists arrogantly hate believers in God and then arrogantly
live in His world as though it’s okay to arrogantly sponge off his creation
without giving him credit for giving it to them.[/quote]

In order for this quote to have merrit, you’d have to prove that God exists. (AT LEAST show some evidence)

There is nothing arrogant about eating or drinking, and if I didn’t believe in God because I was born on a desert Island, I’d hope you wouldn’t concider me arrogant for continueing to live.

Further, by repeating the word arrogant, you’ve done nothing more than show your own arrogance in having the right to judge atheists as if they were lesser humans.

In other words, , “being an arrogant atheist doesn’t necessitate being a bigot, but it certainly arrogantly ups your chances.”

Think about it: if I “knew” there was a god, what good would my then-childish “rebellion” do? I’d end up in hell anyway, and I’d know it! Isn’t that a bit stupid?

The answer is that I am as convinced that God doesn’t exist as I’m convinced about Thor, Zeus or unicorns. I’ve seen no indication of the existence of any of those, and I don’t believe in wishful thinking - which, concerning the lack of evidence, is the main reason to believe in a god (the other is the argument from ignorance).

But never mind. If you’re serious instead of being trolling, read some other posts here and answer them, instead of “witnessing” in general terms. I doubt you can, but surprise me.

Toward the end of his book, *The Theory of Everything*, Stephen Hawking brings up the point that we don’t know why any of the laws of nature ever went into effect in the first place. He considers the possibility that God caused it all, then asks “Who made him?” In other words, he takes an agnostic stance.

Since God can neither be proven nor disproved in a laboratory, atheism is an assumption not supported by empirical evidence. In other words it is a “strongly held personal belief,” or a religion, while agnosticism (With no whining required!) is a more truly objective stance.

Thank you. Thank you very much. (Elvis has left the building.)

I confess, I tend to apply the metric if a theist’s imaginary friend was called Bob and not Jesus, you’d put them away and treat them as slightly dangerous loons. However, some Atheist’s level of faith (it being all but impossible to prove an negative) equally disturbing.

Lets say, that our universe as we know it, is in reality just a small part of a even larger universe. And lets get more silly, and state that maybe our part of the universe was nothing but one empty space with gas in the past. No planets, no nothing. And here comes the even more silly part, lets say a few little gray aliens come flying by in there UFO, and one takes a dump. His hot radioactive wast creates a chain reaction, sucking in the gasses, until it reaches critical mass and creating the ‘universe part’ as we know it.

Sound silly doesnt it? Now, how are all those Christians, Muslims, Yews etc going to feel, that they worshipped a dump as the “creator”. All hail the dump?

Its funny to see people claim that xxx exist, because … heuuu … because … wait … almost there … nowp, don’t got it. O wait, its because other people claim he/she ( lets not be sexist and always refer to it as a he ) exists. And those other people know of it because people teachet them, and them before them, and before them. And before you know it, you are a few tens of thousand years in the past, when people still feared lightening as “god”, and everything else unknown. Religion is nothing more then a very very long story, that got adapted to the times, but it reverts back to our primal fear of the unknown. And because we don’t know what happens after we die, people like to believe the story’s of hell & heaven to justify themselves. And those that disagree with them are arrogant, unbelievers, heidens, and even today, that can get you killed. Just as much as daring to say the world is round a few hundred years ago.

I personally am a strong atheist- I believe that there is no god- but I do not believe this is an arrogant position. I only make my claim in response to theists who claim there is a god but do not provide sufficient evidence. If I were to be provided with one piece on unfakeable evidence in a god, I would change my position. My claim is “I believe there is no god”, not “there is no god and nothing can change my mind.” I cannot see how making an assertion can be construed as arrogance, for everyone makes assertions. The mark of arrogance is holding these assertions to be true regardless of evidence and without reconsidering the position.