Why do atheists participate in religious discussions?

[Avoice]

We KNOW their is no tooth fairy.

Would any one waste their time talking with people who did believe it?
No. For what reason? But atheists do this. Why? They are convinced their is no God. So they say. However if that was true then what are they doing here?

There is no such thing as a person who truly, without a doubt believes there is no God. There is always some doubt. And to find out you have to die.

There are really only one reason for the faithless or Godless to be here.

To accuse people of being wrong knowing they can't prove God exists. And I think atheists iare mad at God for not being able to prove he doesn't exist. I think they refuse to believe in God because they are afraid they would have to prove it and they wouldn't be able to. And the thought of losing an argument or not being able to defend it is too much for them. So they just deny God rather than look foolish. They have big egos. They have to be right. Probably have control issues in relationships

[For_The_Kingdom]

Tell me honestly, if I’d made the exact opposite of that comment about theists, would you consider me to be an open-minded and reasonable person?

Well, I am used to being told by unbelievers that the arguments for theism are weak.

Happens all the time.

From what you’ve written, I don’t see a fruitful way to engage in any meaningful debate with you, and that’s a pity.

Its all gravy.

[Diagoras]

[Replying to post 91 by For_The_Kingdom]

I’m clearly new to the forum, so haven’t had to suffer the same negative accusations as anyone who has been much more active for longer. However, your comment does come across to me as essentially ‘the other side does it too’ which (in my opinion) doesn’t excuse the statement made.

If we all descended to the worst behaviour we observed in others, we’d all be banned within a week.

[For_The_Kingdom]

[Replying to post 91 by For_The_Kingdom]

I’m clearly new to the forum, so haven’t had to suffer the same negative accusations as anyone who has been much more active for longer. However, your comment does come across to me as essentially ‘the other side does it too’ which (in my opinion) doesn’t excuse the statement made.

If we all descended to the worst behaviour we observed in others, we’d all be banned within a week.

Wait a minute, YOU are the one who stated something along the lines of; "from my short tenure here, unbelievers do a good job up backing up their case (defending their arguments)."

All I did was state that, from my experience here, I tend to disagree.

Nothing more, nothing less.

[Diagoras]

...the thought of losing an argument or not being able to defend it is too much for them. So they just deny God rather than look foolish.

I’m quite new to the forum, but my observation is that many of the atheists who engage in debate are quite capable of defending their claims.

Replying to For_The_Kingdom:

Yes, I did say something like that in Post #30. I’ll stand by the statement because:

1) It was a reply to the OP, offering an example of a post in this thread (#19) which specifically rebutted the main claim of the debate.

2) When I did make an observation about ‘the other side’, again I offered an example (of ‘getting onto tangents) to back up my claim.

3) I took care to remain civil and to avoid ‘blanket statements’.

I can appreciate that our perceptions are different when it comes to judging arguments as weak or strong, but I strongly rebut any claim that I use sweeping generalisations in my posts. If you can point to any post of mine that does, I will gladly apologise. If not, I’d request you retract your claim.

[2Dbunk]

[Replying to post 90 by FWI]

Firstly, if you want verifiable facts about Christian claims and stories, you should pose that request to the Christians, not myself…However, it has been shown that the anti-God wouldn't and haven't accepted such attempts anyways! Otherwise, they wouldn't be the anti-God…So, it is not my goal to convince, only to inform. Where, this approach would ensure that the ant-God and those who claim to follow the true and only God, will not be able to deny that they didn't know certain truths, at their prescribed time.

Please clarify. I CAN'T MAKE HIDE NOR HARE of this gibberish. I'm from Missour'a and like to have my hash delivered plainly.

[Diagoras]

There are really only one reason for the faithless or Godless to be here.

To accuse people of being wrong knowing they can't prove God exists.

Not necessarily addressing this to any one ‘side’, I’d like to add a positive reason from my personal perspective.

I’d been looking around for a well-run, active and diverse religious forum for a while before I found this site. Since certain recent political changes around the world, I’ve found myself more concerned that people in general (and quite possibly myself) have become more polarised in their views and less tolerant of others’ beliefs - not just religious, but political as well.

Exposing oneself to others’ views is the only way I know to potentially reverse that trend of polarisation, so I’ve registered here in order to do just that. If I’d instead found an atheist site and registered there, I’d likely just be participating in an ‘echo chamber’ where opposing views would be summarily shouted down.

In general, if Person ‘A’ makes a claim, and I immediately think, “that’s utterly false�, I’d like to be able to set out clearly and simply how and why their claim was false. This forum provides an excellent opportunity to do that on many topics that interest me. So, as many have already said, the chance to learn how to better present my own views is what draws me here. And if I can’t find a way to articulate my views to both a sympathetic and an opposing audience, then well, perhaps my position isn’t quite as strong as I’d like to think.

As a small example of how searching out opposing views has helped my understanding, there’s a thread somewhere here (sorry, can’t find it right now) that was debating the apparent contradiction between different Bible Gospel authors as to the exact date of Jesus’ birth. Although I haven’t posted to it, I did some background research and found a well-reasoned article on a Christian site that addressed the commonly heard atheist claim of the Bible being ‘self-contradictory and therefore unreliable/not the Word of God’. That’s led me to reconsider whether other apparent biblical contradictions might not be equally well explained.

[Tcg]

Although I haven’t posted to it, I did some background research and found a well-reasoned article on a Christian site that addressed the commonly heard atheist claim of the Bible being ‘self-contradictory and therefore unreliable/not the Word of God’. That’s led me to reconsider whether other apparent biblical contradictions might not be equally well explained.

It is not only atheists who recognize the self-contradictory nature of some Bible claims. If this were the case, Christians wouldn't need to address these contradictions. They do address them given that they too recognize the contradictions.

Even if all these bible contradictions could be explained away, this wouldn't provide evidence of a god, but rather of humans who rather clumsily stated what other humans manage to correct after a great deal of research into the words of other humans.

Humans correcting humans is not evidence of god.


Tcg

[For_The_Kingdom]

Do you want me to take you to task with that on this thread, or another thread? How do you want it?

Start a new one pls.

Lets make a deal; you create a thread articulating how the problem of evil disproves the existence of God, and I will reply to the thread, articulating how/why you are wrong.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 98 by For_The_Kingdom]

No deal. I am not going to do the heavy lifting for you, especially given your track record of SMH and LOL.

[Danmark]

Do you want me to take you to task with that on this thread, or another thread? How do you want it?

Start a new one pls.

Lets make a deal; you create a thread articulating how the problem of evil disproves the existence of God, and I will reply to the thread, articulating how/why you are wrong.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Like it's that hard.
God created everything and is all powerful.
Evil exists.
Therefore god created evil.
To create evil is to be evil
God is evil.
Or...
God does not exist.