We're always being told we should respect other people's beliefs, but....

[Hakluyt]

.....what exactly does "respect" mean in this context? I am an atheist, and I am always happy to be challenged on my lack of belief, and am frequently told that I must have no moral compass and that I have to put up and shut up when Christianity imposes itself on me. I have also been told that I must have no sense of wonder- and, on on particularly memorable occasion, that I couldn't possibly have any charitable impulses!

But if I say anything even remotely "challenging" about faith or people of faith,bi am accused of disrespect. So, what exactly does respecting other people's beliefs mean?

BadkonlyBriefly: Daft? I'm not the one who thinks I'm talking about cars.

Obviously you can prove that some kinds of gods are logically impossible, whereas other kinds are empirically extremely unlikely. I've already done the first of those, on this thread.

And no, you can't prove that there isn't some kind of eternal consciousness. The reason people 'suppose' that there is a God rests at bottom with the creation of life, the origin of life, the universe and everything. The reason is, that it is impossible that something came from nothing. The only alternative is an eternal… something. So there is evidence that an eternal something exists, because the alternative is an impossibility.

Build on that, with empirical evidence of the existence of 'prophets' and of stories in the Bible and the Quran, and you have plenty of reasons to believe in God. There is not enough empirical evidence to prove such a thing, and many stories in religious books are empirically and physically impossible, so others can also find plenty of reasons not to believe.

You choose not to. Others choose to believe. If think there may be a god of some kind, however, but just not God, you are not an atheist, but an agnostic.

Big bluestars: by stuff I mean life, matter, the universe, energy time and space. Everything that ever was or ever will be.

BigDorrit: So you have a baseless hope. And you use this as the basis for insulting and scorning people who believe in God?

There are no other possibilities than that at some point there was nothing at all, and something came from that, or that something always existed. No other possibilities.

By the way, BigBluestars, 'very little' is still something. Did that something come from nothing, or did it always exist?

Your posts don't have any logic, BigDorrit, to be fair.

And no, you can't prove that there isn't some kind of eternal consciousness of course you can't.

I have no problem with an infinite universe if that's what it turns out to be, but that does not prove there is a god.

Build on that, with empirical evidence of the existence of 'prophets'

There is no empirical evidence of the existence of 'prophets'. Only evidence of people who claimed to be. How big a house can you build with zero bricks?

And again you say that I choose not to believe. How could someone choose to believe? To me that is a meaningless sentence. You may as well say we should pineapple the oranges.

What is it about not knowing that scares you so much?

It often seems to me that this is the fundamental difference between people with religion and atheists. A lot of people are terrified of a vacuum. I'm not. I can live with not knowing "Why??" although I find it an interesting question, intellectually. When I die, "I" will cease to exist. I'm fine with that. My physical atoms, along with any residual energy, will scatter away to become parts of other things. This makes me happy, and I don't care that I'll have no consciousness of these events.

Religions fill vacuums of knowledge. Not everybody needs those vacuums filled, some of us find them entrancing.

They really don't. They have jumped about all over the place.

'My "hope" has nothing to do with how I perceive people who believe in deities.'

What is your perception of people who believe in deities based on please?

By the way you said your hope earlier was based on experience, and now you say it's just hope and question why it has to be based on anything at all. First of all, your experience is based on the physical laws of this universe, with no evidence that they obtained before this universe was created. If you are hoping for an 'explanation' of creation based on physical laws that came into being at creation then it really is a baseless hope.

Would you mind answering my question about your perception of religious people and what it is based on?

BoB: That is why I put prophets in inverted commas. There is evidence for stories in the Bible, and people written about in the Bible.

Right. Frustratedbaker. This is my position.

It is impossible to prove a negative. So of course I can't say categorically that ther is no god. In the same way that I can't say categorically that the sun will rise tomorrow. But I am as sure as I can be that it will. In the same way, I am as sure as I can be there is no god. Because all the available evidence points to there not being.

I do not know how life started. Maybe one day we will find out. But in the meantime I am happy with "I don't know- we haven't found out yet" I am perfectly comfortable with gaps- they don't scare me!

Oh, and I don't insult and scorn religious people.

They don't scare me either.

I'm not sure how what you say makes an argument with anything I say?

I would just point out that your last sentence - 'I don't know, we haven't found out yet' cords exactly with mine:

I' have assumed that atheists who don't know which one they believe, do themselves assume that the explanation will eventually emerge and that it will conform to the physical laws of this universe as they've been since its creation with the big bang 13 gojillion trillion years ago or whenever it was. '

You don't know what your perception of religious people is based on?

'By the way you said your hope earlier was based on experience, and now you say it's just hope and question why it has to be based on anything at all. First of all, your experience is based on the physical laws of this universe, with no evidence that they obtained before this universe was created.'

Do you actually understand this?

So what is it based on?

Frustrated= there you go again with your assumptions. Why do you assume that atheists ( which are not a cohesive groups) think that the "explanation will eventually emerge".

Maybe it won't. Human race will die out the likelihood is that we we won't have discovered all the mechanisms for the formation of the universe.

And do you know what- I am fine with that. It doesn't make a god any more likely.

I don't assume they all will. A number have said that on this thread, so I'm responding to that. But if you think there is no explanation for life, the universe and everything, even if we don't ever find out what it is, that's rather bizarre.

Please note that I said:

Your choice is eternality, logical impossibility, or belief in an explanation that we don't yet understand and may never understand.

So I don't assume that you believe or hope we will one day understand it. But I must admit I do assume that everyone with a brain thinks that there is an explanation for what happened, by which I mean, the creation of our universe.

So if someone tells you 'I'm a Christian' how do you perceive them?

But who is saying that?

No-one here. The mechanisms of the universe - have nothing to do with belief or hope. And a deity just doesn't enter into things.

Quite a few people, I think Hakluyt, Cote, BigDorrit, say they hope the explanation will emerge or that they think an explanation will emerge. There seems to be a universal acceptance (praise the lord) that an explanation does exist

'The mechanisms of the universe - have nothing to do with belief or hope.'

Whatever do you mean? We are talking about the human response, to be specific about the atheist response, not the physical laws of the universe.

frustrated have you dabbled into substances in the past? I have met a frew people you remind me of who have sailed a little close to the flame and never quite recovered. Or maybe it's your faith that is a little mind altering....