Why do Atheists Hate Religion?

[hornetsnest]

So I see 2 threads of why islam hates people or why people hate Islam. I dont see the point of such a mundane debate based on religion any debate for or against religion would be stupid. Either you are stupid to believe what a prophet / god / divine entity said or you are stupid enough to believe you can change the minds of the bleak minded people who follow such a prophet / god / divine entity.

But since its fun let me initiate my own brand of 'why do' topic.

WHY DO ATHEISTS (like me) HATE RELIGION ?

Seriously what has to happen in a person's life for them to seriously give up hope on the one true everlasting brand (of religion) which their ancestors have followed for generations.

Everyone has their own story even I have mine, so lets hear some of it.

Atheists hate religion because having to obey Gods law offends them.

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[BADecker]

Let's just say that it's 8,000 years.

Well, we don't have anybody who has gone back to even 5,000 years to count tree rings, and to observe them being laid down one per year. We don't know that trees back at 5,000 years didn't lay down 10 rings a year for a 500 year period, or maybe, only 1 ring every 10 years for a 500 year period. And we don't know if the cosmic energy that makes C-14 wasn't the cause for lesser or greater C-14 AND lesser or greater numbers of tree rings per year for certain time periods.

Because of this, the carbon dating science is all assumptions. If scientists and books said, "We assume, based on da da da," It would be okay. But the emphasis is that this science is fact when it's only assumption. Such makes it to not be science at all, but rather, fable... with emphasis on the Bull.

In fact, that's how scientists treat a whole lot of things. They form a hypothesis, and find a way that the hypothesis could be real. But they ignore or pooh, pooh all kinds of things that show that reality could easily be a whole lot different. To see that this is true, take a look at some of the other things that Graham Hancock shows us at https://grahamhancock.com/.

Carbon 14 half-life is 5730 years.  Carbon-14 dating is reliable to about 3 half-lives or about 18,000 years. Isotopes of other elements can also be used to estimate fossil ages beyond 20,000 years.  Potassium 40 half-life is 1.28 billion years.

BTW, tree rings mark the end of summer.  See summerwood/latewood.

For a tree on this planet to grow 10 rings a year, you would have to have an environment with 10 summers/fall/winter/springs a year, and a 10 fold increase in Sun activity, LOL.  You are basically talking nonsense.

Basically and simply I am saying that nobody knows what happened in the distant past.

We don't know if C-14 wasn't dumped onto the earth in large quantity from a meteorite or not. We don't know if God created all the C-14 on the 4th day 7,500 years ago, just to make things work, or not.

We don't know if in the distant past, tree rings were formed every week... or if the times they were formed varied or not.

[Gyfts]

Weak atheists don't necessarily hate religion. Strong atheists hate religion because the stronger the atheist, the more he can't get away from his atheism religion.

I would say that atheism can be scientific, in the sense that you find the world-model that contains God to be unsatisfactory due to an absence of evidence, or just logically unconvincing. But an atheism that is based on the unproveable conviction that "there is no God", is perhaps less scientific, as it's founded on an ideological position.

My personal position I suppose is that I believe that God doesn't exist, but can't prove it, although the absence of evidence is overwhelmingly strong... but this is a secondary consideration, because I also believe that no-one should worship anything (a deity or otherwise), so even if God was proven to exist, he/she/it shouldn't be worshipped, and religion should not be followed.

Atheism is as scientific as it gets. I'm not inclined to believe that without religion, the world would be a hellish landscape with no true "moral philosophy." That is to say, can objective morality ever be reached, and can it be reached without religion? I think so. And it can be reached through science because atheism is a science based approach to reality, not one of hearsay books or writing, outlandish stories, many of which are physically improbable (or downright impossible). It sounds like you're describing agnosticism, that we cannot prove or disprove God.

But really, the burden of proof lies on the religion fanatics. Considering they impose their religion on so much of their life, you think they'd have some reasoning to believe what they believe. Not just a belief because someone told them so, but actual evidence. Most just use religion as a moral guide or to have a sense of belonging. Not that it would effect anyone, but religion has led to the most pain and suffering in human history. It's possible that all this pain and suffering would have happened anyway, even if it wasn't in the name of god, because let's face it, humans were pretty animalistic before modern moral philosophy.

[BernyJB]

Atheism is as scientific as it gets.

Actually, if we take atheism as the rejection of the belief in any deities, I'd say atheism is as unscientific as religion is.
There is a basic rule of science: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
At that, atheism is just the (wrong) belief that, because science has been unable to prove the existence of any such deities, they just don't exist.

I'm not inclined to believe that without religion, the world would be a hellish landscape with no true "moral philosophy."

Why, is it any better now, with religion?

That is to say, can objective morality ever be reached, and can it be reached without religion? I think so. And it can be reached through science because atheism is a science based approach to reality, not one of hearsay books or writing, outlandish stories, many of which are physically improbable (or downright impossible). It sounds like you're describing agnosticism, that we cannot prove or disprove God.

Well, it could be argued that objective morality can ONLY be reached without religion, since a religious person will only be moral for fear of being punished, or because they're expecting to be rewarded.
In any case, the fact that a claim may be "outlandish" doesn't necessarily disprove it.
"If God wanted men to fly, he would've given him wings", was the belief in the early 1900s, against the Wright brothers' "outlandish" claims. Mel Brooks said "He would've given him tickets".

But really, the burden of proof lies on the religion fanatics. Considering they impose their religion on so much of their life, you think they'd have some reasoning to believe what they believe. Not just a belief because someone told them so, but actual evidence. Most just use religion as a moral guide or to have a sense of belonging. Not that it would effect anyone, but religion has led to the most pain and suffering in human history. It's possible that all this pain and suffering would have happened anyway, even if it wasn't in the name of god, because let's face it, humans were pretty animalistic before modern moral philosophy.

The burden of proof lies on everybody making a claim. Not being able to prove the existence of something doesn't necessarily disprove it.
Personally, I don't know if deities (or any specific deity) exist, so I believe (without any proof whatsoever) they don't. So I act as if they don't, and follow my own moral compass, without fear of retaliation or expectation of reward.

[af_newbie]

Let's just say that it's 8,000 years.

Well, we don't have anybody who has gone back to even 5,000 years to count tree rings, and to observe them being laid down one per year. We don't know that trees back at 5,000 years didn't lay down 10 rings a year for a 500 year period, or maybe, only 1 ring every 10 years for a 500 year period. And we don't know if the cosmic energy that makes C-14 wasn't the cause for lesser or greater C-14 AND lesser or greater numbers of tree rings per year for certain time periods.

Because of this, the carbon dating science is all assumptions. If scientists and books said, "We assume, based on da da da," It would be okay. But the emphasis is that this science is fact when it's only assumption. Such makes it to not be science at all, but rather, fable... with emphasis on the Bull.

In fact, that's how scientists treat a whole lot of things. They form a hypothesis, and find a way that the hypothesis could be real. But they ignore or pooh, pooh all kinds of things that show that reality could easily be a whole lot different. To see that this is true, take a look at some of the other things that Graham Hancock shows us at https://grahamhancock.com/.

Carbon 14 half-life is 5730 years.  Carbon-14 dating is reliable to about 3 half-lives or about 18,000 years. Isotopes of other elements can also be used to estimate fossil ages beyond 20,000 years.  Potassium 40 half-life is 1.28 billion years.

BTW, tree rings mark the end of summer.  See summerwood/latewood.

For a tree on this planet to grow 10 rings a year, you would have to have an environment with 10 summers/fall/winter/springs a year, and a 10 fold increase in Sun activity, LOL.  You are basically talking nonsense.

Basically and simply I am saying that nobody knows what happened in the distant past.

We don't know if C-14 wasn't dumped onto the earth in large quantity from a meteorite or not. We don't know if God created all the C-14 on the 4th day 7,500 years ago, just to make things work, or not.

We don't know if in the distant past, tree rings were formed every week... or if the times they were formed varied or not.

If a meteorite brought large amounts of C-14, it would be locked in rocks in the impact area, not in everything that contains carbon.

Instead, isotopes exist naturally in specific ratios.  That is why this dating method is extremely useful.

BTW, 'God' created jack squat.  Carbon-14 atoms are formed in the atmosphere from Nitrogen.  They are absorbed by plants, and subsequently, end up in every living thing.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/
 

[Gyfts]

Actually, if we take atheism as the rejection of the belief in any deities, I'd say atheism is as unscientific as religion is.
There is a basic rule of science: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
At that, atheism is just the (wrong) belief that, because science has been unable to prove the existence of any such deities, they just don't exist.

It's also impossible to prove a negative, impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, and it isn't a burden on the atheists to disprove a god, it is on religious followers to prove any sort of higher power.

This is the game that religious believers will play, constantly shifting the burden onto any non-believers, asking them to do the impossible task of proving something that does not exist.

Well, it could be argued that objective morality can ONLY be reached without religion, since a religious person will only be moral for fear of being punished, or because they're expecting to be rewarded.
In any case, the fact that a claim may be "outlandish" doesn't necessarily disprove it.
"If God wanted men to fly, he would've given him wings", was the belief in the early 1900s, against the Wright brothers' "outlandish" claims. Mel Brooks said "He would've given him tickets".

And it depends on how far you'd be willing to consider what is "real" and what is physically improbable. Nothing has to obey the laws of physics if you choose not to believe the premise of physics. Nothing has to obey evolutionary biology if you reject evolutionary biology as a premise. So the outlandish claims in the bible, or Quran, or whatever holy book may not seem so outlandish if you reject certain principles outright.

The burden of proof lies on everybody making a claim. Not being able to prove the existence of something doesn't necessarily disprove it.
Personally, I don't know if deities (or any specific deity) exist, so I believe (without any proof whatsoever) they don't. So I act as if they don't, and follow my own moral compass, without fear of retaliation or expectation of reward.

Well, again, the burden falls on those making the claim of god, not someone rejecting the notions of a higher power who do so on lack of evidence.

[BADecker]

Basically and simply I am saying that nobody knows what happened in the distant past.

We don't know if C-14 wasn't dumped onto the earth in large quantity from a meteorite or not. We don't know if God created all the C-14 on the 4th day 7,500 years ago, just to make things work, or not.

We don't know if in the distant past, tree rings were formed every week... or if the times they were formed varied or not.

If a meteorite brought large amounts of C-14, it would be locked in rocks in the impact area, not in everything that contains carbon.

Instead, isotopes exist naturally in specific ratios.  That is why this dating method is extremely useful.

BTW, 'God' created jack squat.  Carbon-14 atoms are formed in the atmosphere from Nitrogen.  They are absorbed by plants, and subsequently, end up in every living thing.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/
 

You almost contradict yourself directly.

What do meteorites do when they hit the atmosphere? They break up, exploding somewhat.

What do meteorites do when they hit the ground? Explode into the atmosphere.

What do plants suck in when there is C-14 in the atmosphere? C-14.

What don't plants suck in if the atmosphere is not conducive to making C-14 for some reason, and no C-14 meteorite hit? C-14.

God created the earth with a canopy of water around it. Why? to keep cosmic rays out, so people wouldn't be harmed by them. The Great Flood of Noah's day destroyed the canopy of water, and now we have C-14 and a much shorter life span, from?... cosmic rays.

Even you understand this from your church training.

[af_newbie]

...
God created the earth with a canopy of water around it. Why? to keep cosmic rays out, so people wouldn't be harmed by them. The Great Flood of Noah's day destroyed the canopy of water, and now we have C-14 and a much shorter life span, from?... cosmic rays.
...

Finally, we are getting closer to the inner depths of your psychosis.

[Masplanc]

I don't think some atheists really hates really, from my observation I think they dislike religion extremist, religious people who take their religion believe to serious and try to be too sentimental about everything.

[BernyJB]

Actually, if we take atheism as the rejection of the belief in any deities, I'd say atheism is as unscientific as religion is.
There is a basic rule of science: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
At that, atheism is just the (wrong) belief that, because science has been unable to prove the existence of any such deities, they just don't exist.

It's also impossible to prove a negative, impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, and it isn't a burden on the atheists to disprove a god, it is on religious followers to prove any sort of higher power.

This is the game that religious believers will play, constantly shifting the burden onto any non-believers, asking them to do the impossible task of proving something that does not exist.

Nothing is "impossible", it just hasn't been done yet. I believe in science. As that, I make no claims as to the existence or not of any deity or "higher power". I believe there isn't one, but I might be wrong.

Well, it could be argued that objective morality can ONLY be reached without religion, since a religious person will only be moral for fear of being punished, or because they're expecting to be rewarded.
In any case, the fact that a claim may be "outlandish" doesn't necessarily disprove it.
"If God wanted men to fly, he would've given him wings", was the belief in the early 1900s, against the Wright brothers' "outlandish" claims. Mel Brooks said "He would've given him tickets".

And it depends on how far you'd be willing to consider what is "real" and what is physically improbable. Nothing has to obey the laws of physics if you choose not to believe the premise of physics. Nothing has to obey evolutionary biology if you reject evolutionary biology as a premise. So the outlandish claims in the bible, or Quran, or whatever holy book may not seem so outlandish if you reject certain principles outright.

Well, if we consider the wise (and technically accurate) words of "Morpheus", "reality is just a series of electrical impulses interpreted by your brain".
Nothing is "improbable": it just hasn't been proved (right or not) yet.

The burden of proof lies on everybody making a claim. Not being able to prove the existence of something doesn't necessarily disprove it.
Personally, I don't know if deities (or any specific deity) exist, so I believe (without any proof whatsoever) they don't. So I act as if they don't, and follow my own moral compass, without fear of retaliation or expectation of reward.

Well, again, the burden falls on those making the claim of god, not someone rejecting the notions of a higher power who do so on lack of evidence.

Nope. "Science" means "knowledge" in Latin (well, "scientia" did). As that, not being able to prove the existence of a given deity (or even of all deities) doesn't mean deities don't exist. Religions should be able to prove their respective god's existence, while atheism should be able to prove no gods actually exist. Until then, this is gonna remain a philosophical matter.

[af_newbie]

...
Nope. "Science" means "knowledge" in Latin (well, "scientia" did). As that, not being able to prove the existence of a given deity (or even of all deities) doesn't mean deities don't exist. Religions should be able to prove their respective god's existence, while atheism should be able to prove no gods actually exist. Until then, this is gonna remain a philosophical matter.

We can only disprove the specific claims.

For example: 
1. World was created in 6 days.
Why is it false: Universe is at least 13.8 billion years old.

2. Jesus was resurrected.
Why is it false: Cell death is an irreversible process.

3. Snake talked in the past.
Why is it false: The anatomy of snakes prevents them from being able to talk.

4. Earth was created 10,000 years ago.
Why is it false: Human-made artifacts older than 30,000 have been found.  The evolution of life on Earth has been going on for at least 3.5 billion years.

5. Muhammad flew on Buraq to ...
Why is it false: Horses do not have wings and cannot fly.  Human and horse gametes would not produce viable offspring.

A general claim that X exists cannot be proven or disproven.  Most people who say that X exists do not even know how to define X.
And when they do, their definition usually differs from the definition given by other people who are convinced that X is something else.

[Imam Nuddin]

So I see 2 threads of why islam hates people or why people hate Islam. I dont see the point of such a mundane debate based on religion any debate for or against religion would be stupid. Either you are stupid to believe what a prophet / god / divine entity said or you are stupid enough to believe you can change the minds of the bleak minded people who follow such a prophet / god / divine entity.

But since its fun let me initiate my own brand of 'why do' topic.

WHY DO ATHEISTS (like me) HATE RELIGION ?

Seriously what has to happen in a person's life for them to seriously give up hope on the one true everlasting brand (of religion) which their ancestors have followed for generations.

Everyone has their own story even I have mine, so lets hear some of it.

Atheism or also called atheism is a view, they assume that God does not exist. Atheists are not something new, they have been around since around 1000 BC.

They claim that religious people will think God is perfect, but often portray this in contradictory and incoherent ways. Many characteristics are associated with God, some of which are impossible and some combinations are just as impossible in their realistic mind.

[BernyJB]

af_newbie: which is why this remains a philosophical topic. Everybody keeps saying proving (one thing or another) is "impossible", and nobody focuses on actually finding a solution to the problem at hand. Very convenient for some.
In any case, it's not a scientific issue. Religion is not scientific, and neither is atheism.
Best case scenario it's a clash of opinions.

[Gyfts]

Well, if we consider the wise (and technically accurate) words of "Morpheus", "reality is just a series of electrical impulses interpreted by your brain".
Nothing is "improbable": it just hasn't been proved (right or not) yet.

I would agree that reality is just a sense of electrical impulses, so much so that I question whether humans have any free will at all, which would but a dent in any religious dogma. Any series of actions, or inaction, must be fueled by neural impulses, all of which are chemical signals triggered by external stimuli. Chemical transmitter signaling molecules creating our perceived interpretations of reality, and every neural impulse must be influenced by a previous neural impulse. And so the influence of these impulses may not actually happen by "us", meaning we are balls of meat wondering around, sentient, and somehow aware of the stimuli that interact with us.

Not much religion would play into this, of course. We're just here by chance.

[af_newbie]

So I see 2 threads of why islam hates people or why people hate Islam. I dont see the point of such a mundane debate based on religion any debate for or against religion would be stupid. Either you are stupid to believe what a prophet / god / divine entity said or you are stupid enough to believe you can change the minds of the bleak minded people who follow such a prophet / god / divine entity.

But since its fun let me initiate my own brand of 'why do' topic.

WHY DO ATHEISTS (like me) HATE RELIGION ?

Seriously what has to happen in a person's life for them to seriously give up hope on the one true everlasting brand (of religion) which their ancestors have followed for generations.

Everyone has their own story even I have mine, so lets hear some of it.

Atheism or also called atheism is a view, they assume that God does not exist. Atheists are not something new, they have been around since around 1000 BC.

They claim that religious people will think God is perfect, but often portray this in contradictory and incoherent ways. Many characteristics are associated with God, some of which are impossible and some combinations are just as impossible in their realistic mind.

I have never met any theist who could provide a clear definition of what God is.  Not what it did, what it does, or who he is?

What is God composed of?  Give me its chemical composition or forever shut up about this fictional character.

[Cnut237]

But really, the burden of proof lies on the religion fanatics. Considering they impose their religion on so much of their life, you think they'd have some reasoning to believe what they believe. Not just a belief because someone told them so, but actual evidence. Most just use religion as a moral guide or to have a sense of belonging. Not that it would effect anyone, but religion has led to the most pain and suffering in human history. It's possible that all this pain and suffering would have happened anyway, even if it wasn't in the name of god, because let's face it, humans were pretty animalistic before modern moral philosophy.

The burden of proof lies on everybody making a claim.

Gyfts is correct, that the burden of proof lies with the theists. The reason for this is that the default, status quo position has to be that God doesn't exist. If you consider the world around you, you see buildings, trees, sky, animals, but no God. You may posit that because you don't understand how the world came to exist, some higher power must have created it... but this idea, in the absence of evidence, is merely that: an idea. And the burden of proof lies especially heavy when the idea is one that, by its nature, can be proven but can never be disproven.

Atheists are not making a claim. Rather, they are saying to the theists: your claim has no supporting evidence. This is apparent in the word itself: a-theism is a response to the theist position.

Not being able to prove the existence of something doesn't necessarily disprove it.

This is a separate issue, and doesn't relate to the question of the burden of proof other than through Russell's Teapot ("the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others").

[BADecker]

^^^ What's interesting is that it's only been the last 500 years where people haven't understood the complexity of the universe enough to see God. People have figured out some complex stuff. It made them proud to have done this, and they think that they can figure it all out. Then they die, but they haven't even figured out that most of their simple thinking is only their imagination, and that it isn't even a scratch on what there is to know.

God is a bit sad for them. But He isn't going to deny Himself again, for them. Once denying Himself by denying Jesus was enough.

[Gyfts]

^^^ What's interesting is that it's only been the last 500 years where people haven't understood the complexity of the universe enough to see God. People have figured out some complex stuff. It made them proud to have done this, and they think that they can figure it all out.

That's actually backwards, it's only the last 200 or so years that people have began to understand the complexity of the universe, and formulate the complexity of the universe into scientific principles of physics, mathematics, etc. It was only within the last couple thousand years that atheism has developed and split from mainstream religious beliefs, this is after religion held its grip on civilization for hundreds of thousands of years.

Really, the correlation is between atheism and advancement of technology/understanding of science.

[BADecker]

^^^ And the ability of atheists to ignore the fact that much of science is based on engineering that made it work, while much more of it doesn't work.

[hornetsnest]

Lets all just get along y'all. Our atheist brethern all belong to the same human family and have a right to believe or not believe. I would prefer if they did believe but I ain't like those tyrants forcing vaccines on sheople using the not to be questioned false god of science. It's those atheist hypocrites I have a problem with u see ...as with all theist hypocrites