If you are atheist, should you be considered the anti-christ?

Evidence does not determine reality, and I believe I've already established in one of these threads that no absolute evidence for either side can possibly exist anyway.

Besides, for evidence to suffice, one must have faith in its authenticity and believe that the conclusions we draw from it are accurate.

 

I didn't demand absolute evidence, I demanded reasonable evidence. And evidence is the best route to determining reality that we have.

 

Some of the more aggressive atheists here on RomUlation do state that they demand absolute evidence & poke fun at overly religious people for obviously being unable to provide said absolute evidence which used to lead to severe flaming that's why the admins ultimately decided to ban topics like these from ever being posted.

 

Of course it'd be easier blame abuse of religious beliefs on God/Satan/whathaveyou rather than the corrupt humans that manipulated religion for their own ends, amirite?

Or perhaps it advocates a set of moral and ethical principles for society's benefit.

If evidence is not absolute, it is meaningless. Even if my fingerprints were on a gun, that doesn't prove beyond a doubt that I murdered a man.

And I thought I'd already established that mankind cannot reliably determine reality. Some modicum of faith is required for any belief. According to Descartes' cogito ergo sum, the only thing we cannot logically doubt is our own existence.

Demanding negative proof is a logical fallacy by the way. Religious debates tend to have a lot of those.

 

I think my point was that "evil" was created by humans to use as a tool to manipulate others.

Using fear to motivate people to do something is never the right way to do it. America has been doing something similar the last few decades with terrorists/communists/etc to strip elements of the constitution that give people rights.

Not true, if your fingerprints were on a gun used in murder, it is more than likely you were the murderer. Is this absolutely true? No, but it does point us in the right direction, or at least down an avenue of investigation that might lead results. Theist haven't even presented the fingerprints, only a vague witness account of how they heard what sounded like a gunshot.

Who cares if what we experience is really real or not, that has no bearing on the discussion.

 

Evil exists with or without manipulation.

Okay? I did say "or", implying that "using fear etc" and "advocating morals" are separate options.

"Evidence" can easily point us down the entirely wrong road. For all we know, the real murderer drugged me and used my hand to pull the trigger while I was unconscious. With such decisive evidence against me, would anyone believe that I wasn't responsible?

If there is room for doubt, we cannot reach a conclusion. I'd say there's plenty of room for doubt in this discussion, wouldn't you?

 

I think the idea of evil as an entity/idea was created by humans, all "evil" acts usually have a purpose/reason behind them.

I thought you meant that the fear of evil was being used to advocate a set of moral and ethical principles, are you saying evil itself advocates these things?

Too much room for doubt, hence are attempts to narrow it down, unfortunately some people cannot see the doubt in their position. We can reach a conclusion with doubt, the object must be to limit the doubt.

 

Sure, "evil" is arbitrary, but that doesn't mean it was created for the sole purpose of manipulation.

The religious idea of evil.

Less doubt means more faith, therefore I restate my ongoing claim that all things require some degree of faith.

 

I have faith in you tehuber. Show me tehlight?

 

Meh, you should've been on IRC when gaynor and I reached a mutual understanding.

 

Damn!

Just for the topic, I don't believe in faith.

 

If we're going to go by your logic, then you'd be anti-Buddha, anti-Allah, anti-Vishnu, etc etc. :/

 

Antichrists have nothing to do with Revelations. Read through Revelations and that title is not used once. The only time the term antichrist is used anywhere in the bible itself is in 1 John and 2 John. In 1 John, it says that anyone who does not believe in Jesus as the son of God is an antichrist, and 2 John refers to anyone that preaches that Jesus is not the son of God is an antichrist. It goes on to say that they are hateful and immoral, so by implication I guess a non-Christian both is and isn't an antichrist if s/he doesn't believe in Jesus as the messiah but remains a good person (oh wait, no, John [as well as MANY Christians as I know from personal experience] seem to think that non-believers in Christianity CAN'T be good people. whoops).
On Tehuber and Gaynorvader's debate of evidence...specifically to tehuber, your example of a way that contravenes evidence is a huge stretch. But that's kind of the point. For something to go against the majority of evidence is not impossible, it is just, by definition of the word 'evidence,' hugely improbable. Occam's razor and whatnot. We take evidence as being "absolute" because it is the only thing on which we can even remotely base our judgments on. I agree that far too many atheists simply say "show me incontrovertible evidence," instead of, "show me evidence greater than the evidence I have accumulated for my side," but in my experience, the theist is far more guilty of this.

 

Yep, that's what you get from only reading one side of an argument.

Also, if Christ is a translation from the original Hebrew "anointed one"(rough translation) then an antichrist is an 'unanointed one'? Doesn't sound as bad as some Christian activists make it out to be. Under this definition, anyone who hasn't been baptised is the antichrist, but once they have been anointed they are christ? Isn't etymology fun?

 

@gaynorvader: If you extend further to include Judaism, the Hebrew people doesn't even consider Jesus Christ as their anointed savior, so it follows that the Christian tradition of Baptism would also be meaningless too. So yeah, Christians & Catholics as well "may" not even be granted access to heaven (if it does exist) too.

What religion did South Park mention will have definite access to heaven? Mormons right LOL! <- Just joking around with this bit though.

 

Mormons know the secret password to Heaven.

 

Hahah I think I saw that episode...

"If you are atheist, should you be considered the anti-christ?"

Who cares.

 

Christians.