The summer 2011 totally legitimate and like official atheist thread, endorsed too

[piercerseth]

The atheist is just arrogant and blind enough to declare, without any knowledge or evidence.

Ok, I'll bite. You've got the particulars backwards. I dunno about you, but I only refute assertions when empircal evidence has been provided--however tenuous it might be. I can't falsify your claim, but I'm also comfortable living my life with Russell and his teapot.

Ad hominems & ignorantiams are kids' fallacies, I know you can do better.

[megabyteme]

the atheist [...] taking a particularly reasonable explanation for the existence of the universe off the table.

[mjmacky]

According to the limited powers of intellect the atheist may possess, he feels comfortable taking a particularly reasonable explanation for the existence of the universe off the table. Whether or not the atheist accepts or rejects any notions of God he is fool to imagine the only possibilities are that a non-sentinent universe has always existed or that it came into being only by blind chance.

Blind chance is a reoccurring phenomenon and is grounded in our reality. Basically, we have a general understanding of statistics, probability, and all that abstract stuff. At the least, we are capable of understanding it.

What is being rejected is the library of both wildly varied and selectively incestuous works of fiction that have served as placeholders until the world around us could be more aptly described. This practice persists in science today, and it is understanding that algebraic mechanism that provides sufficient perspective to not accept old mythologies as truths that govern our world.

That means that the offer on the table, as you put it, is archaic and silly if not irksome (due to the consequences of fervor). Your persistence in its validity is akin to me convincing you of the existence of gremlins. That's a bad analogy, I admit, since gremlins are totally real. Why else would one copy of MS Word crash with the same document and another can handle it just fine? Gremlins, that's why.

[megabyteme]

since gremlins are totally real.

[piercerseth]

existence of gremlins

They wouldn't be a problem if you didn't insist on feeding them after midnight. Heathen.

[svirk]

Blind chance is a reoccurring phenomenon and is grounded in our reality...
What is being rejected is the library of both wildly varied and selectively incestuous works of fiction that have served as placeholders until the world around us could be more aptly described....

Your rejection of "works of fiction" has nothing to do with anything I said. I state only that the universe is the result of blind chance and has always existed or that there is a Creator that exists outside of the universe. I state that the atheist has no particular reason to accept or reject either of these propositions. Everything around you has a cause for its existence. The chain of causes must have a beginning. Why does the atheist insist that the cause of all causes must be non-sentinent?

It is because the atheist clings to his belief in the same many religionists cling to theirs. The atheist discards all that is true in order to feel superior and mock those who have accepted ludicrous ideas along with the truth. It is a disease of arrogance that leads them astray and it is a disease that is spreading fast in this age.

[megabyteme]

So many horrible things have been done in the name of God, under the orders of The Church, following the book which is based on ideas conceived and written by man in order to control the lives of others.

Atheists, cynical as they may be, have never done such things...

[mjmacky]

Blind chance is a reoccurring phenomenon and is grounded in our reality...
What is being rejected is the library of both wildly varied and selectively incestuous works of fiction that have served as placeholders until the world around us could be more aptly described....

Your rejection of "works of fiction" has nothing to do with anything I said. I state only that the universe is the result of blind chance and has always existed or that there is a Creator that exists outside of the universe. I state that the atheist has no particular reason to accept or reject either of these propositions. Everything around you has a cause for its existence. The chain of causes must have a beginning. Why does the atheist insist that the cause of all causes must be non-sentinent?

It is because the atheist clings to his belief in the same many religionists cling to theirs. The atheist discards all that is true in order to feel superior and mock those who have accepted ludicrous ideas along with the truth. It is a disease of arrogance that leads them astray and it is a disease that is spreading fast in this age.

You're forgetting the part that we can observe the occurrence of minutely probable events but there is no such verification for the fantasy of a metaphysical creator.

An atheist can learn and understand phenomena without having to rely on faith. It's a conclusion based on observations rather than belief.

Someone of faith can portray the same phenomena with a narrative derived from pure fantasy, and it doesn't need to be justified since there is neither truth nor a need for truth in such a mechanism.

These are completely different approaches and not simply a divided path from the same root.

For instance, perception and experience allow me to conclude that the simplest method to travel between walled rooms is via open doorways. You, on the other hand, can "believe" that the simplest method is trying to walk straight through the wall based on some folklore that has been passed down your ancestral tree. These are not two sides of the same coin, and I will not bother with what goes on between you and your helmet. If you try to convince me or a mass of people to follow suit, I will judge you accordingly.

[mjmacky]

So many horrible things have been done in the name of God, under the orders of The Church, following the book which is based on ideas conceived and written by man in order to control the lives of others.

Atheists, cynical as they may be, have never done such things...

This is the basis of antitheism. Religion as a tool for control has had so many deleterious effects on both personal and societal scales.

[theblake]

Atheists cynical as they may be, have never done such things...

Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot?