Friday 2 December 2011

Tame lightning, dead monsters and metal!

Browsing around and link-following in a lazy moment (this being a physically lazy moment rather than an intellectually lazy moment if you see the difference) I found a very complete list of Questions and Answers that all atheists should have to hand.

This was An Atheist Catechism: Part One, The Questions Christians Ask
from The Lady Atheist's blog.  She says:

There are two problems with the dialogue between Christians and atheists.  The first is that Christians define the  terms and control the territory.  They have well-worn traditions behind them, but little experience asking the questions they should answer.  They only "answer" the questions they have been taught to ask.  There's also some psychological projection going on, in my opinion.  They have so little idea of how others think that they can't conceive of their preconceptions not being shared, only that the conclusions differ.  They seem very concerned about atheists' souls, as if they can conceive of not believing in a god but they can't imagine not believing in a soul . . .

I've come up with some answers to their (often stupid) questions. 

And indeed she has.  It is a catalogue of answers to all the common questions that we hear frequently, and her answers are well worth reading.  Then there are a few more answers in the comments on the page.  Here's a nice one selected from her list:

Q:  You just left the Church because you want to sin
A:  If I really believed in the concept of "sin" the last thing I would do is leave the Church!  Unless you're hinting that you can game the system and run around sinning until the very last moment then accept Christ as your Lord and Savior and have it all erased.  What has been considered a "sin" has changed so much over the history of the Church that almost anything a person does over the course of the day could have been considered a "sin" at some point in history by some religious group.   Read on
And then I found another interesting take on the same topic, a response written by an ex-Hindu.   Atheist Catechism Redux - The Hindunator can be found on a blog called "A Million Gods" I particularly liked:

Q: What about the miracles of the Bible?
Which ones? You know they can simply be fairy tales or fables. What about the miracles of other religions? What about the miracles of science? As we speak this is posted through the power of tame lightning on a device made out of sand, dead monsters and metal. That's pretty miraculous if you ask me. A lot more so than something that may not even have happened.  Read on

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