Atheists on belief threads. Why?

[DioneTheDiabolist]

While there are sometimes interesting threads where atheists and believers discuss and debate religion, it seems to me that increasingly atheists only come onto threads here to poopoo or disrespect the beliefs of others.

Am I right about this and if not then what is the reasoning behind the posts where atheists call the beliefs of others rubbish etc?

"Dad Where is the evidence that God does not exist? Surely, no one can prove it either way?"

And if you can't prove the existence of something, the logical stance to take is to assume it doesn't exist until proven otherwise. Especially when the thing you can't prove the existence of has no way of being measured, so it may as well not be there even if it DOES exist!

Apple spread the use of the touch screen mobile phone, but they sure as hell didn't come up with the idea and if they hadn't been around, we'd still have them now (possibly a few years later than we did, for argument's sake) and they'd probably be pretty similar. I simply don't accept that Christianity is the only reason we have hospitals and schools. If the Muslims had Christian help, then they must have wanted to set them up, they perhaps just didn't have enough experience or expertise and some Christians popped up who did, so they used them, no harm in standing on the shoulders of (the somewhat metaphorical) giants.

Niminy you might find the library at Alexandria interesting.
Also, the Christian's not so Christian behaviour towards Hypatia who studied at the library.

The laws which led to the formation of the welfare state (the Elizabethan poor laws, and then the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, and finally the establishment of the welfare state in 1945) were a direct development of medieval practices of charity, in which the poor and disabled were aided by the rest of society.

These were taxes - the church taxed the parish - it was not charity but taxes which were extra to government taxes and they had no choice but to pay. There is a difference between giving and being forced to pay a tax

Interesting link to ancient hospitals in India

"We are struck by the general rule in those hospitals according to which entry to them was reserved for poor people only. Rich people were denied admission as they could afford to get the treatment at their homes only"

Niminy, look up Ashoka. Buddhist King way before Jesus who set up hospitals etc... I'm sure there's more. Same with centres of learning. And Universities and the renaissance came from Islam.
Anyway, I'm late to this thread but I'm tired of the way religion impacts on day to day lives. Bishops in the house of Lords. Shops with Sunday opening times. Religious assembly in schools. Keep it private please.

Juule, the link you give doesn't say that Christians destroyed the Mouseion or it's daughter-library at the Temple of Serapis. It merely says 'if, indeed, the library was destroyed...' . There is no definitive evidence that the library (if, indeed, the library was housed in the temple, and if it was destroyed, neither of which is certain) was destroyed by Christians. Quite the reverse.

Valetudinaria: as I said, the wiki entry casts doubt on how many there actually were, and what their function was.

Ashoka is certainly referred to in the wiki entry. But the link you give, Jules, just collects together a list of myths and undated, unverified assertions.

Hypatia: was not murdered by Cyril (and Theophilus did not destroy the library of Alexandria). There were both Christian and non-Christian Neo-Platonists, and Hypatia was known to be close to Christians. The article you link to is a farrago, and draws upon a historically quite unreliable and inaccurate book.

I agree there were institutions of learning in medieval Islam. However, the first institutions that called themselves universities, and that were the ancestors of modern universities, were Christian institutions.

The Renaissance did not come from Islam, although it is true that there was a great deal of knowledge-exchange between Christian and Muslim scholars.

Re taxes: and where did the concept of those who have giving to those who have not come from? Taxes to support the poor are radically different from ancient forms of taxation, which were mainly used to support the ruling elite and fund the military.

gonna answer about why should Christian religious rules be imposed on the rest of us Niminy?
I cant be bothered answering your version of history which is wrong but I suggest you educate yourself. Which you wont. I really dont care if people are religious but I do care when their rules are imposed on me, in schools and their priests get to decide on how my country is run. Seperation of church and state please. No more religion in schools except as a topic, no more bishops in Govt etc

So Christians are claiming trademark on the term "University" now as well as "marriage"? Oh well, perhaps we can have academies or schools instead then.......

I seem to recall Christians opposing science and learning. As Galileo discovered to his cost.

No, Christians didn't oppose science and learning (indeed, Galileo's research was sponsored and published by prelates of the Church). To call this silly idea a myth is to dignify it, and certainly no serious historian of science would have anything to do with it.

I thought that Gallileo was threatened with torture if he didn't recant his views. I may well be wrong though.

My mistake, he was put on trial and kept under house arrest. His crime was believing that the earth moves around the sun.

Whatkindoffool - yes, Pedropony answered that that for me very concisely. It's not up to the person who doesn't believe to provide evidence. It's up to the person who does.

Or, put another way - what don't you believe in? And why not? If you answer that, you may well answer the question of why people don't believe in gods.

Niminy, you're giving an awful lot of support to the idea that to be religious is to be wilfully ignorant. The Hippocratic Oath, sworn by all doctors, is a product of pre-christian Greece, for example.

Or do you believe that actually all these ancient civilisations, like dinosaurs, didn't really exist and that the 'evidence' for them is a prank your imaginary friend is playing to check that you are prepared to buy whatever it's selling you without question?

As I said, his research was sponsored and published by prelates of the church. The lessons of Galileo's trial, unedifying as it is, are mostly those of personality. However, that the church opposed the heliocentric system is not one of them.

'he was put on trial and kept under house arrest. His crime was believing that the earth moves around the sun.'

Daft man that Galileo....

The threat of torture was merely a part of the inquisition. The heretics were then shown the implements. The actual torture came later. Still, they all worshiped a god of love.

I was talking about hospitals, not doctors. Of course I know that the Hippocratic Oath is named after Hippocrates.

My original point, which has got lost in a welter of historical detail is that the institutions we value, and by which we count ourselves civilised, are Christian in origin and character. Those people who are determined to see the history of the Christian church as a history of unrelieved oppression, violence and misery are either wilfully, or woefully ignorant of history.

but you yourself have interchanged charity with tax and then arrived at the welfare state in 1945.

Just checking, niminy- are you saying that there were no hospitals, universities, charity or sense of self before Christianity? That these things are all less than 2000 years old?

I stand corrected about hospitals. There were a few before Christianity: however, they were rare and isolated. Christians oversaw a massive expansion of public hospitals, and the establishment of a hospital in every significant centre of population.

There were no universities in the ancient world. There are some Islamic universities which can trace their history back to before 1000CE, but these were all based in mosques. The university as we understand it was invented in medieval Europe.

Charity is a specifically Christian virtue. There may have been kind acts in the ancient world I'm sure there were but there was not charity.

I did not say there was no sense of self before Christianity. I said that the modern idea of the individual, and the concept of the rights of the individual, is the heir of the Christian conviction that each human being is uniquely beloved of God and equally valuable in his eyes. This idea would have been regarded as bizarre and laughable, perhaps even dangerous, in the ancient world.

I, personally, don't think Christianity should be forced on anyone, InfamousPoo. ( I know you weren't asking me though :))

My country doesn't have tax funded faith schools or a House of Lords, and I would vehemently oppose either if it ever came up, though I'm religious myself.