Are Atheists Really Just Christians With Weak Faith?

Please, everyone loves Easter because of the candy and Christmas because of the presents. People who hate either holiday apparently never got what they wanted from Santa and found a lot of real rabbit "candy" as a child.

Religious people celebrate the religious aspects of the holidays and also enjoy the secular side of it. And there's nothing wrong with that. Jesus got gold, frankensence and myrr when he was born, and the soldiers were gambling for Jesus' clothes when he died so it could be argued that both holidays were commercialized right from the beginning.

 

Unfortunately, this is not the case no matter how you'd like to neatly rationalize it. Virtually all our modern day holidays were commercialized heavily. The flower industry is just one culprit, just to name one of the avaricious. With regard to Christmas and the day of celebration (as if it is the birthday of Christ), the history might make your jaw drop. Easter is another good example of commercialization. Many of those who don't like the holiday aren't haters of the Christian faith but just what it has become to be understood. You even admit that everyone loves the Holidays for the gifts, which is the focus of the entire affair.

If you ask most people about the religious aspect of most of these holidays (at least in the US) you'll find that they really don't know about that part. But they sure know about giving presents, sending flowers and chocolate and rolling eggs. It's a sad example of modern day consumer driven culture where money typically comes way before G-d.

 

let me refresh your memory:

 

I only read the first page of this and so apologies to pages 2 and 3, but my answer was too immediately on my lips to trudge through the rest. I would reply to this:

"Are Christians really just weak Athiests" ?

..you know it really, you're just hanging onto a distant silly fable, that in the cold light of day is basically a pretty ridiculous hope, and calling it "faith" and hoping against hope that at the end, there will be someone there to comfort you and make it easier and it will all turn out alright after all...

..back to the ol "teapot in orbit" analogy, I for one know it's out there orbiting.. ...I have faith


flame away

 

If you look at it logically, Christianity it's self is a belief like racism is.

(an example of how comparing two things on the basis that they happen to be "beliefs" doesn't make sense)

 

The moral of the story is - stay off the caffeine.

 

What religious people are you talking to? There's not a single Christian that wouldn't know that Christmas is the day we celebrate Jesus' b-day. And we get all the presents. Since my wife and I have our b-days 10 days apart we celebrate them together on the weekend between. Does that mean we're not really celebrating our b-days?

Christmas and Easter are the two holidays that many people will go to church for even if they don't go the rest of the year.

Or are you refering to the pointless details about the origins of the holiday and how Christians retooled pagan symbols?

When it comes to symbols it doesn't matter how other people see them. It matters how you see them. Mormons see the cross as a symbol of death. Christians see life. We're not about to stop using the symbol of the cross when the Bible calls it "the power of God" just because Mormons don't get it.

It doesn't matter if pagans worship the evergreen tree. Christians see it as a symbol of eternal life and think of Christ.

 

All we want are your souls, not your brains. You can keep those. We aren't zombies.

True, because afterward you might get a big headache--a physical or metaphysical one--both suck

 

That's the third time you've dodged the issue.

What is it with you people and equating atheism to christianity? There's absolutely no similarities and none of you can stop dodging questions long enough to explain it. Tsk tsk.

 

There's really nothing to explain, but people have repeatedly stated that atheism is a belief system. If you can't admit that without further explination or calling belief in God "absurd", I think it's you who are dodging the issue.

 

I would say no.

Even if they DID have a weak faith, why would it necessarily be Christian faith? Why not Hindu or something?

If someone does not believe in the Christian God, Jesus and all that jazz then they are not Christian. Doesn't matter if they used to be. I used to be many things that I'm not anymore.

By this logic, if you used to be an Atheist and then became a Christian does that mean that you're still an Atheist? I don't think so.

And what about people of other religions who know about Christianity but don't follow it? Would they be weak Christians even though they're a different religion?

 

How can it be a belief system when the only thing that makes someone atheist is a DISbelief? It's the exact opposite of a belief.

You are continuing to try and drag us down to your level. Have you entirely given up on making your case now? Does your argument entirely consist of you pretending that atheism and theism are in some way comparable?

 

Here's a joke to maybe lighten things up:

 

I'll try to make it simple.

Atheism is disbelief that there is a god.
Religion is disbelief that there is no god.

Atheism is belief that there is no god.
Religion is belief that there is a god.

Neither one can be proven without a doubt by humans.

Pretty similar, right? Unless you disagree with any of those statements.

 

True. But if you make the claim that something exists you're the one that HAS TO PROOVE it does, not the guy not believing your claims.

You have to have faith to believe something who's existence can't be prooven, you don't need faith to not believe in something that can't be prooven that's why believing something that can't be prooven is ridiculous while not believing it it's not. You should really stop making these arguments, they are really pathetic

 

I give up on getting you to openly admit that Atheism is a belief system, but I hope that everyone else can see from the fact that

1: You agree neither can be proven
2: Your own words: "believing something that can't be proven is ridiculous"

is enough to show that Atheists simply don't have the ability to believe the possibility of anything which is unproven to them, or are too proud to admit their own denial.

 

dude, what exactly is a belief system in atheism? It's LACK OF BELIEF. Just like lack of belief in santa, easter bunny, etc

of course neither can be prooven. You can't proove non-existence but if you make a claim that something exists you have to proove it

true

I do have that ability but I choose not to. Why should I believe somebody else's fantasies? I prefer using rationality to verify the veridicity of other people's claims.

I mean you too probably check if the stuff the car salesman told you is true or not don't you? You don't just believe everything everyone say ? Why? Because checking for facts is good for you

 

That life can spontaniously come to be.

As you agree with

It takes faith to believe that science will ever figure out how to create life from non-life and not only that, but show that it is possible for that life to come about without intelligent intervension.

So do you agree that it is ridiculous to believe that life can be created spontaniously from non-life?

Or do you have faith that science will find the secret to life and essentially immortality eventually?

 

science has plenty of holes in it and stuff it can't explain but that's not a reason to jump to the conclusion that if we can't explain it "god must have done it". There is no irrefutable evidence that life has spontanously appeared or that it was created by a superior being. We don't know for sure how life appeared. But if you can't show me conclusive evidence of the existence of god then I will continue to disbelief in its existence

 

So you reject God due to lack of conclusive proof that you assume will never come but you accept spontanious life despite the lack of conclusive proof because you assume it will come.

I can see how that's much more intellectual.

So the race is between finding God and finding immortality.

Two mythical ideas.