Teenage Atheist Union

[Leon.]

I'm willing to bet all my money that you would turn religious if you were to survive a near-death experience.

Been there done that a few times. Still atheist.

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

Been there done that a few times. Still atheist.

What near death experience? You ran out of hamburgers? COMON, i hate LIARS da MOST on this world!

You know what they say for an atheist that is on a near death experience? You do? Whell that applies for all atheists. When you stop lying and actually go on a near death experience you will see.

[Reece]

What near death experience? You ran out of hamburgers? COMON, i hate LIARS da MOST on this world!

You know what they say for an atheist that is on a near death experience? You do? Whell that applies for all atheists. When you stop lying and actually go on a near death experience you will see.

How do you know he hasn't had a near-death experience?

I know I have. Because I'm atheist, does that make me a liar?

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

How do you know he hasn't had a near-death experience?

I know I have. Because I'm atheist, does that make me a liar?

Ok, what near death experience?

[Reece]

Ok, what near death experience?

I had a severe asthma attack to the point where I stopped breathing.

[Ratko Gavrilovic]

I had a severe asthma attack to the point where I stopped breathing.

Being close to death is not a near-death experience.
It means that you feel detachment from your body, connecting to another world.

[Reece]

Being close to death is not a near-death experience.
It means that you feel detachment from your body, connecting to another world.

Depends, it could mean either really, but now I read the whole thing again, I see I misread it.

But, I had an "experience" with it though. It was crippling pain and the worst feeling I have ever experienced in my life. The only lights I saw were those on the roof of the hospital.

[Daco]

What near death experience? You ran out of hamburgers?

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOL

[Void]

It is said in the first post that the purpose of the page is not bashing on religious people, yet I mostly see funny pictures/quotes about religious people and agnostics.
You can't be this, you can't be that.

First mistake this page made is: "Teenage". I simply have to concur, we teenagers are blessed with knowledge. In fact, we know so much that we're simply smarter and experienced than the rest. Atheism is like fashion nowadays. It's about what's "in" and "out". Which Biblical quote shall we revert or mock at today? That is the main question.
90% of atheists can't even derive the root of the word and name where it comes from, let alone know something about it. (inb4 goes on wikipedia to see)

There is no clear line between religion and faith nowadays, most people cannot resemble those two terms so they don't choose what to bash.

Look at the example to explain your never-ending "fruitful" debating whether there is God or not:
Person A claims there is a giant walrus just underneath Pluto. This walrus is the famous "Kosmos" which communicates with certain individuals while they are at sleep.
Person B might ask: "I would like a proof of that", or answer "That's simply impossible!"
Person A answers: "Then prove me wrong"

Since our current scientific ways are limited in this example(as in the example of proving a supernatural being in general) we cannot discard either of the statements.
Thus, we rely on the empirical approach which is also wrong in this example. You can add thousand of other claims to this example and they would be listed as facts due to the majority of supporters(look at the religion distribution) but still cannot be proved as false/correct! You can't possibly grasp all claims and easily list them as true or false. Instead, we make a huge error and pick one out of the pile and the pile collapses. The context always remains context and you will always end up wrong.
Result? The debate goes on forever.

The above mentioned example should be viewed by both "clans". If you make a statement, it is your burden to prove it. Did science manage to prove there's no supernatural being? Did the Church prove the existence of their "God"?


To believe or not to believe? Choose! "You can't be an undetermined factor!" part:
Given a statement Z we are expected to conclude whether the statement is TRUE or FALSE. Why? Why can't the statement be UNDETERMINED. Is it my opinion?
What if I lack reason or motivation to decide on the statement Z? It is not necessary and desirable to form an opinion on a statement. Having an opinion about statement Z grants you no privileged status over me. Nor is there a special reason for the acquisition of belief to be a particular goal.

Person A claims there is a supernatural being while person C denies it. Where is person B? He did not form a belief about the subject either way. This is often confused with agnosticism. Agnosticism concerns lack of knowledge, not belief. Something can't be known.

The correct sentence would be: "I don't know, but I believe there is a supernatural being" and person C: "I don't know and I believe there's no such thing as a supernatur. being."
Person B has no knowledge or belief either way. Person B is not middle ground between person A and C.

Lacking belief in any supernatural being is our default position(Take a new-born child as an example). The rest is your path which is incorrect in 99.9% of cases.

tl;dr: Fools, fools everywhere. We can relativize to infinity.

[Gandalf]

Lacking belief in any supernatural being is our default position(Take a new-born child as an example). The rest is your path which is incorrect in 99.9% of cases.

tl;dr: Fools, fools everywhere. We can relativize to infinity.

The new-born child position has already been handled here. In fact we do not know if a new-born child has any belief, and by the time they developed the ability to answer any questioning they have already been influenced by their surrounding too much to expect a logical answer.
Also it has been successfully argued that looking at ancient and current people, belief in supernatural beings to explain the unknown is a general occurrance, more general as not having such.
From a scientific point of view it is impossible to prove something does not exist, there can be only proof of what does exist. There for no scientist can ever obtain proof that supernatural or any other beings which are believed to exist do not.
The only proof can be positive, that something does exist. That does not mean something which is not proven can not exist.

 :ps: Good to see you

[Void]

The new-born child position has already been handled here. In fact we do not know if a new-born child has any belief, and by the time they developed the ability to answer any questioning they have already been influenced by their surrounding too much to expect a logical answer.
Also it has been successfully argued that looking at ancient and current people, belief in supernatural beings to explain the unknown is a general occurrance, more general as not having such.
From a scientific point of view it is impossible to prove something does not exist, there can be only proof of what does exist. There for no scientist can ever obtain proof that supernatural or any other beings which are believed to exist do not.
The only proof can be positive, that something does exist. That does not mean something which is not proven can not exist.

I just dug in the intro to elaborate the poster's failed critical thinking.
Now to connect to your quote.
I've been trying to link reasoning/belief theories by reading Piaget. Now, Piaget states that the first stage of cognitive development is sensorimotor.
The time when a new-born(later an infant) learns about his world through reflex/motor actions and "sensations" which only lead to empirical conclusions. We can only ask ourselves if someone/something planted a belief into the child before it was born or et cetera. Psychology proved that there are no "rational" processes within new-borns. They develop after a few months. The problems with empirical-rational: We can either believe what Locke said: "There can't be a priori knowledge. First goes the empirical" or we can discard it and take Descartes' belief: "There is knowledge but it's not backed up by the empirical. If we don't have rational at first, we are not a part of this world".
Lets just observe animals as the answer.

:ps: Good to see you

Thanks. It's good to see this board can have reasonable arguments with the unbearable temperatures.

[Gandalf]

I just dug in the intro to elaborate the poster's failed critical thinking.
Now to connect to your quote.
I've been trying to link reasoning/belief theories by reading Piaget. Now, Piaget states that the first stage of cognitive development is sensorimotor.
The time when a new-born(later an infant) learns about his world through reflex/motor actions and "sensations" which only lead to empirical conclusions. We can only ask ourselves if someone/something planted a belief into the child before it was born or et cetera. Psychology proved that there are no "rational" processes within new-borns. They develop after a few months. The problems with empirical-rational: We can either believe what Locke said: "There can't be a priori knowledge. First goes the empirical" or we can discard it and take Descartes' belief: "There is knowledge but it's not backed up by the empirical. If we don't have rational at first, we are not a part of this world".
Lets just observe animals as the answer.
Thanks. It's good to see this board can have reasonable arguments with the unbearable temperatures.

I am sorry but I can go against Piaget and psychology from experience.
My new-born was very capable of rational processes at extremely young age, and well before any verbal communication was possible. In this all new-borns are different as some will develop it at later stage.
In this case I count as rational behaviour to find the source of food without external help or encouragement within a week. More specific; Mrs Gandalf slept and woke up to find GandalfJr happily sucking her nipple. He had moved himself in to the correct position while she was sleeping.
This requires not just empirical conclusions (sucking a nipple means food) but also awareness of where to move and the ability to move himself knowingly to the right position, thus showing capability of rational thought.

[Void]

I am sorry but I can go against Piaget and psychology from experience.
My new-born was very capable of rational processes at extremely young age, and well before any verbal communication was possible. In this all new-borns are different as some will develop it at later stage.
In this case I count as rational behaviour to find the source of food without external help or encouragement within a week. More specific; Mrs Gandalf slept and woke up to find GandalfJr happily sucking her nipple. He had moved himself in to the correct position while she was sleeping.
This requires not just empirical conclusions (sucking a nipple means food) but also awareness of where to move and the ability to move himself knowingly to the right position, thus showing capability of rational thought.

It seems like rational thinking when you put it that way but what truly happened inside GandalfJr's head, can't be known for certain. Although, we have "free hands" to decide when it comes to categorizing it as instinct or intellect.

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

I had a severe asthma attack to the point where I stopped breathing.

That a near death experience? For real? My classmate had the same thing. Really, i know people die from it, but it can be solved in a matter of seconds. You are too busy choaking to think about God. But, yes, it is a near death experience.

Now when you flip 5 times in an old rusty "zastava" car (Serbian car brand, compleatly shitty car), try not to change your mind about atheism. Especially dont change your mind when you hang out in that wreck for 15 minutes whaiting for help to arrive. Good thing that a small city was there. I was scared like never before in my life. I was praying every second. Hopefully, as we were going on a trip, we had TONS of package, so it covered us, and we sustained no damage. If there was no package, id be laying 2 meters underground right about now.

Now, all i am saying is that, when you get into a preaty nasty near death experience you will change your mind, trust me on this.

[Gandalf]

It seems like rational thinking when you put it that way but what truly happened inside GandalfJr's head, can't be known for certain. Although, we have "free hands" to decide when it comes to categorizing it as instinct or intellect.

He has consistently been showing logic capabilities beyond his age, which he hopefully will maintain.

The fact is that throughout human history the belief in supernatural beings has been developed without fault.
This separates us, as far as we know at this point, from other species on this planet. It is unknown if this is due to the ability to question ourselves about our surroundings, or to the actual presence. What is known is that it takes an advanced knowledge to rationally not believe in suernatural beings, contrary to what is usually claimed.
And that excludes the 'don not give a fuck' persons who are simply not considering the matter.