Yeah, crime's going up too. Wonder if there's any correlation. I guess when you teach kids [in public school] that they are nothing but re-arranged pondscum, and therefore life has no meaning, they tend to act like they believe it (think Columbine).

>Yeah, crime's going up too.

Except that it isn't.

http://wwwPreliminary Crime Statistics for 2009.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/august-2010/crime-data

"The FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report showed that violent crime in the nation decreased 5.5 percent and property crime declined 4.9 percent when compared with data from 2008. Data in the report came from 13,237 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 months of data in both 2008 and 2009."

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/may/crime_052410/crime-rates-fall-according-to-our-preliminary-stats

"Preliminary data indicates that, for the third year in a row, the rate of violent crime in the United States is down. It appears that property crime also declined, for the seventh straight year."

As someone else noted:

Atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less numerous in the prison population (0.21%)

Japan (the most atheistic nation in the G-8) has the lowest murder rate while the United States (the most Christian nation in the G-8) has the highest. Japan used to have much stronger religious faith, and a state religion, and was remarkably aggressive and militaristic when "Shintoism" was at its peak, and during WW2, when its Emperor was regarded as a God.

Louisiana, with America's highest church attendance rate, has twice the national average murder rate.

There is a much stronger correlation between race, low IQ, and criminality, but nobody wants to deal with that reality.

anon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is a much stronger correlation between race,
> low IQ, and criminality, but nobody wants to deal
> with that reality.

[citation needed]

nice to see you! and if not...nice to "see" you anyway! :)

D. P. Gumby Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >Yeah, crime's going up too.
>
> Except that it isn't.

The overall number of crimes isn't necessarily rising (according to those statistics), but the kinds of crimes (and their pervasiveness) are.

Nowadays kids shooting other kids (or adults) at schools is commonplace (just happened yesterday in Indiana, one of dozens in the past couple of years).

And one of the shooters at Columbine had on his shirt (the day he and his buddy killed 13 people) the words "Natural Selection" (generally associated with Darwinian atheistic belief).

If I didn't know I was accountable in the future and afterlife, I'd be a running drugs and guns across the border (no, actually, I wouldn't, I'd be retired by now, having made millions doing that).

When you teach kids that they are nothing more than a cosmic accident (and teach it as if it's fact), this is what you end up with, and it's getting worse (despite the fact that "overall" last year violent crimes were down across the country).

If kids are taught they are nothing more than pondscum, the resulting necessary conclusion they must draw is that they can do anything they want, there is no absolute right or wrong. Right or wrong are determined by a vote. If that's the case, then when you have a society like Nazi Germany, if the majority says killing innocent people by the millions is right, then it's right. If there is no God to declare what is always right and what is always wrong, then any such talk is only opinion, and there is no absolute right or wrong.

while still in the single digits, most people develop this thing called empathy.
Grown ups don't need fear of punishment to know what is right.

Amen to that. The golden rule is all we ever really needed.

WM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> D. P. Gumby Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > >Yeah, crime's going up too.
> >
> > Except that it isn't.
>
> The overall number of crimes isn't necessarily
> rising (according to those statistics), but the
> kinds of crimes (and their pervasiveness) are.
>
> Nowadays kids shooting other kids (or adults) at
> schools is commonplace (just happened yesterday in
> Indiana, one of dozens in the past couple of
> years).
>
> And one of the shooters at Columbine had on his
> shirt (the day he and his buddy killed 13 people)
> the words "Natural Selection" (generally
> associated with Darwinian atheistic belief).
>
> If I didn't know I was accountable in the future
> and afterlife, I'd be a running drugs and guns
> across the border (no, actually, I wouldn't, I'd
> be retired by now, having made millions doing
> that).
>
> When you teach kids that they are nothing more
> than a cosmic accident (and teach it as if it's
> fact), this is what you end up with, and it's
> getting worse (despite the fact that "overall"
> last year violent crimes were down across the
> country).
>
> If kids are taught they are nothing more than
> pondscum, the resulting necessary conclusion they
> must draw is that they can do anything they want,
> there is no absolute right or wrong. Right or
> wrong are determined by a vote. If that's the
> case, then when you have a society like Nazi
> Germany, if the majority says killing innocent
> people by the millions is right, then it's right.
> If there is no God to declare what is always right
> and what is always wrong, then any such talk is
> only opinion, and there is no absolute right or
> wrong.

The pope believes in evolution. Is he an atheist? Geez, believing in God and evolution are hardly mutually exclusive.

WM Wrote:

>
> The overall number of crimes isn't necessarily
> rising (according to those statistics), but the
> kinds of crimes (and their pervasiveness) are.
>
> Nowadays kids shooting other kids (or adults) at
> schools is commonplace (just happened yesterday in
> Indiana, one of dozens in the past couple of
> years).

That would be considered a violent crime, according to the statistics, violent crime dropped for the last 3 years. Although you try to claim violent crime has risen, the numbers show otherwise.

>
> And one of the shooters at Columbine had on his
> shirt (the day he and his buddy killed 13 people)
> the words "Natural Selection" (generally
> associated with Darwinian atheistic belief).

One person? That does not prove violent crime is on the rise... Of course we could repost the link about the man that stoned someone to death because of the teachings of the OT.

>
> If I didn't know I was accountable in the future
> and afterlife, I'd be a running drugs and guns
> across the border (no, actually, I wouldn't, I'd
> be retired by now, having made millions doing
> that).
>

And I bet you would be gay, murdering children, and all that stuff, just because that is the kind of guy you are without your God, eh?

> When you teach kids that they are nothing more
> than a cosmic accident (and teach it as if it's
> fact), this is what you end up with, and it's
> getting worse (despite the fact that "overall"
> last year violent crimes were down across the
> country).

So, how do you justify the claim it is getting worse, when for the last 3 years the numbers show it is getting better?

>
> If kids are taught they are nothing more than
> pondscum, the resulting necessary conclusion they
> must draw is that they can do anything they want,
> there is no absolute right or wrong. Right or
> wrong are determined by a vote. If that's the
> case, then when you have a society like Nazi
> Germany, if the majority says killing innocent
> people by the millions is right, then it's right.
> If there is no God to declare what is always right
> and what is always wrong, then any such talk is
> only opinion, and there is no absolute right or
> wrong.

Well, I am an atheist and I was taught that I was not pond scum, that I was an animal, part of a species that had evolved from pond scum. The difference between me and you? I do not need a God to do good. I have no God and I would not "running drugs and guns across the border" I would never even think of it. Yet you claim that God is the only thing stopping you. Now, truly, who is the more moral person, me, the person that would not do such things simply because they are wrong, or you, the person that would do them if you did not fear retribution?

Hitler was xstian.

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Hitlersfaith.html

atheist&happy:-) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hitler was xstian.
>
> http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Hitlers
> faith.html

Actually Hitler was more of a pagan who played lip service to Christianity in public and denounced it in private, but he was no atheist either.I do agree with the point you are making though.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece

"According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems. "

So the only reason you aren't a child-molesting drug addict is not because you're a good person, but because you're afraid of being punished by God?

I disagree with you.

Most atheists I know are very kind loving people who want to be remembered as such.

and going to burn in hell for eternity they tend to act like they believe it (think the KKK).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism
"The goals of the KKK included from an early time on, an intent to, "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible," and believe that, "Jesus was the first Klansman.""

How do you explain the behavior of all the pedophile priests? What were they taught that caused them to think and behave like that? When Jesus said suffer the little children to come unto me, I don't think that was what he meant.

a deficit of jeezus did not cause Columbine.

http://www.slate.com/id/2099203

The Depressive and the Psychopath
At last we know why the Columbine killers did it.
By Dave Cullen

“Yeah, crime's going up too. Wonder if there's any correlation. I guess when you teach kids [in public school] that they are nothing but re-arranged pondscum, and therefore life has no meaning, they tend to act like they believe it (think Columbine).”

This is like running out in the street to throw mud at passersby just to see what happens.

Yeah all the horrors in the world are because of atheists/evolutionists. I hope you are being sarcastic because if you aren’t, well then you got splainin to do.

First of all, crime isn't on the rise and you don't have to have religion to be a good person. There are good atheists and bad Christians out there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 01:29AM by bona dea.

Belief or non-belief does not mean your personal morals necessarily align with societies rules nor do you need either to derive personal morals.

When the human race reaches its zenith, it will have to be atheist by definition. Who does God pray to? Medical research is being done right now in laboratories to create cloned body parts and extend lifespans. Only religious types are opposed to the progress being made.

Religion is a primitive urge based upon fear of the dark and fear of death. It went through a lot of refinements, but it just couldn't keep up. Superstition appeals to human nature, but education goes farther. Of course we needed religion in our primitive past to instill humanitarian values. Now those values have been separated from spooks and ghosts and we can move forward.

Or will we have another dark age due to the rise of Islam or some other idiotic sub-culture?

Don Bagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When the human race reaches its zenith, it will
> have to be atheist by definition. Who does God
> pray to?

God doesn't pray to anyone. He is the first cause, He always was and always will be. He is the creator of all that exists.

> Medical research is being done right now
> in laboratories to create cloned body parts and
> extend lifespans. Only religious types are opposed
> to the progress being made.

You mean because they believe it's wrong (because God says so) to kill innocent people (people "created" (not using man-made supplies, but divinely created ones, by the way) for the express purpose of taking their lives, "harvesting" their organs? Yes, "religious" types are opposed to that. They're also opposed to killing innocent fellow students at schools. But if Darwinism is true, then there really ultimately is nothing wrong with killing innocent people at school. Life is just a cosmic joke, and you're really only ending the earthly time of some "rearranged pondscum" anyways, right?

No, atheism isn't a possibility, in reality, because man's existence (and the existence of the universe) without a creator isn't a possibility. It's mathematically impossible (go check out Sir Fred Holye (famous mathematician/astronomer of the 20th century) (the man who coined the term "big bang", by the way, as a term of derision, as the life-from-chance isn't possible. He and his associate Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the odds of it happening (using only a few of the many required parameters) and found the odds of life arising by chance to be one in ten raised to the 40,000th power. Mathematicians have a rule that if the chance of anything happening is slimmer than one in ten raised to the 50th power, it will never happen, no matter how much time and space you allot. So clearly, if ten raised to the 50th power is impossible, far more so is ten raised to the 40,000th power. As he put it:

"The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."

>Mathematicians have a rule that if the chance of anything happening is slimmer than one in ten raised to the 50th power, it will never happen, no matter how much time and space you allot. So clearly, if ten raised to the 50th power is impossible, far more so is ten raised to the 40,000th power.

You have a reference for that? Or is it just something you heard at Bible study? Because I'm calling bullshit on that one.

Also Fred Hoyle believed that life on earth came from someplace else in the galaxy ( and that our nostrils are on the underside of our noses so that we won't inhale microorganisms from outer space). How does that fit with your Genesis story?

In fact, he said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Even god acknowledged there were other gods.

You can try and twist that into some kind of redefinition of the word "god" by claiming he meant money, gold, and rich apparel but the fact remains, there is LESS evidence for a First Cause God than there is for a Never Existed God.

God is a useless icon for people who can't control their own actions by being kind to everyone REGARDLESS of some after-we're-dead reward/punishment.

It's really time for religious people to grow up.

"Mathematicians have a rule that if the chance of anything happening is slimmer than one in ten raised to the 50th power, it will never happen, no matter how much time and space you allot. So clearly, if ten raised to the 50th power is impossible"

When Mathematicians talk about "chance" they are are talking about the likelihood that something would happen. If they the chances of event X happening are 1 in 10, they are saying that they would expect that, on average, event X happens once out of every 10 tries. So, if they are saying the chances are 1 in 10 raised to the 50th power, they are saying that on average, for ever 1 in 10 raised to the 50th power tries even X would happen 1 times. They have the rule because they are dealing on a human scale, not a scale as large as the Universe.

As for Holye, Well, It seems most scientists don't accept his theory. There are tons of scientists that have made false claims, that is why science has peer review. I mean seriously, a couple of scientists claimed they created cold fusion, but when reviewed by other scientists those two were exposed as frauds. So, if you want to make a point, try using something that is a bit more accepted by the scientific community as a whole, and not just quote some scientist that few, if any, accept.

Fred Hoyle did do real science - he was a pioneer in the theory of nucleosynthesis. If you apply those ideas to relative abundances of elements that should have been created in the early universe, the results predicted by the inflationary big bang theory precisely match the actual results. So even Hoyle's real scientific contributions do not supporthis steady state hypothesis.

You are correct - even brilliant scientists can have wrong ideas - Newton was an alchemist and Halley believed the Earth was hollow, for example. The thibg about science is that it is ultimately self-correcting. If an incorrect idea gets put out there, when contrary evidence appears the incorrect idea gets rejected. Unlike Mormonism.

WM, I happen to have a relative who is working in biological research. They are growing mouse organs without bodies. Your assertion that people will be laboratory grown and then sacrificed for organs is specious. They are growing isolated organs. Would you say that it is evil to grow a kidney in a vat and then transplant it?

Who says I approve of killing innocent people "at school?" I'm really disgusted that you inserted such an ugly thought. I think maybe you are sick.

Atheism, you say, isn't a possibility? No? Then why is it growing faster than Mormonism and other religions?

Your attacks on Darwin are amusing. You claim that math will bury Darwin. Those are two different disciplines, math and biology, in case you haven't noticed.

By the way, Atheism doesn't deny purpose. We create purpose everyday.

I'm calling bullshit too. In the latest Skeptics Magazine they have a wonderful article on the start of life that does not require a magic man in the sky.

Also, the most caring people I know are atheists. The ones that are the most vile and hateful are hardcore Christians.

Homo Sapiens has evolved with a trait called altruism. Even chimpanzees exhibit this trait. It isn't hard to figure out that if you treat others well that they will treat you the same. I prefer atheists who adhere to the ideals of secular humanism to people who believe in an invisible man in the sky.

And I am not an atheist but have met very moral and honest atheists. I have also met some religious people who can't be trusted further than you can see them.I am not sure there is a correlation between religion and morality. People are pretty good at justifying what they want. BTW, I think the big problem at Columbine was unrelenting bullying. I have no idea if the killers had religious training or not, but they were outsiders who had been subjected to teasing and bullying and they certainly had emotional and psychiatric problems.

So far I've learned that the only thing that keeps you from murdering and doing illegal activities is a belief in God.

I'm an atheist and I would NEVER do any of those things. You're messed up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 02:35AM by Freevolved.

...is exhibited by the comment "If kids are taught they are nothing more than pondscum, the resulting necessary conclusion they must draw is that they can do anything they want, there is no absolute right or wrong."

First of all, WM, that's a strawman argument. I know lots of atheists and not a single one of them would characterize humans as "nothing more than pond scum."

All, yes every one, of the atheists I know, including myself, are amazed at life. We're amazed at the complexity, the beauty, the magnificence of not only humanity but of all the organisms that thrive on this dusty little rock.

And none of us teach our kids that killing is ok because your invisible Sky Buddy doesn't exist. We teach them that one of the amazing things we can do as humans is actually care for the less fortunate. That we can make a difference in the happiness and safety of every human (and animals, too) by taking a genuine interest in actions/policies/laws that affect each of us.

I think you need to try and get rid of your anti-atheist notions and really get to know some of us.

Excluding myself, most atheists are really great people!

Freevolved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So far I've learned that the only thing that keeps
> you from murdering and doing illegal activities is
> a belief in God.
>
> I'm an atheist and I would NEVER do any of those
> things. You're messed up.

There are many reasons why peope are good and bad including genetics, upbringing, brain chemistry etc.There are probably factors involved t hat we haven't even thought of yet. Atheists are not without a conscience. I also don't believe that religious people are good because they are afraid God will zap them if they aren't. VM is making a very complex subject very simplistic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 02:12AM by bona dea.

And I wouldn't have resorted to name calling except that well, he started it ;)

But WM comes in here calling me a criminal when the worst thing I've ever done is drive 5 over the speed limit (ok 10).

WM seems to think it's simple equation of atheist = scum pond man murder guy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 02:36AM by Freevolved.

Freevolved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I wouldn't have resorted to name calling
> except that well, he started it ;)
>
> But VM comes in here calling me a criminal when
> the worst thing I've ever done is drive 5 over the
> speed limit (ok 10).
>
> VM seems to think it's simple equation of atheist
> = scum pond man murder guy.

My comments were directed at WM, not you. His views are simplistic.

No problem.

damn i must be going to outer darkness or sum such... i was going more than that this am!! i drive on the highway between7 and 14 over the speed limit!! hey its Florida!! it takes about 12 hours from my house to Pensacola!! thats a long drive at the speed limit!!
and lookit at bona defending the "faith" (atheism)!! :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 11:03AM by bignevermo.

OK 15. I really don't speed though. It's just not my thang. I'm usually not in a rush, so I like driving with the music blaring taking my time. I'm always 5 over (most people are), but that's about it.

Think about what you are saying WM. You don't really believe that.

Evolution teaches us that we are related to all life on the planet. When you look at the humble beginings of life it is amazing how far life has come to arrive at its current forms, and makes one pause to contemplate where it could go in the future. Religion teaches a static model. The is no progression of life. No adaptation, no growth. We are what we were and ever will be. What is inspirational about that? Evolution shows us that life is precious and brief. We learn that entire species can be wiped out by cataclysm. We see that we cannot rely on the favors of God to protect us when we see the mass extinctions that have befallen the majority of past creations on the planet. Why are we more favored than they? We must instead rely on ourselves to do all we can to survive in a world and universe that is overwhelmingly hostile to life. The comforts many of us enjoy in the developped world did not come from revelations to priests, but were hard won with tireless research into the true nature of our world. Efforts which far too often have been met with hostility from thosr who claim to believe in God.

... who ushers in his "heros" (Moses and JuHEEsus) with three episodes of infant genocide?

For his sake, he better hope he doesn't exist cause I be bitch-slappin' that MoFo on judgement day!

Timothy