In order to have atheism, the concept of theos must first exist. You can't have an ism if no one knows what the thing is that its suffixed to. So there's no atheism before religion or at least one theos.
Just like Tinklipism. What is that? Who knows? No one's invented the idea of a Tinklip yet, whatever that may be. Definitely no Atinklipism yet either.
No. Atheism is not defined as opposition to religion, it's absence of religion. That means that before religion, there was only atheism.
Before humans, the concept of "human" didn't exist. Yet we can still say that the animals living before humans were non-humans, just like non-human animals today are.
Their point was just that humans existed for a long time before theism was invented. Atheism is just a word to describe a lack of theism. Which there was definitely a lack of before theism existed.
This is like saying you can't not collect stamps if stamps haven't been invented yet. Before stamps are invented, it's impossible to collect stamps, which makes everyone.... Not a stamp collector.
Maybe we could start some kind of support group that meets at the church once a week for those of us who just found out recently we are gay and have non-existent significant others
The reasoning in the commenter’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it:
A) Incorrectly assumes that atheism is a hereditary trait that can be subject to natural selection and extinction.
B) Fails to acknowledge that the existence of atheists with children contradicts the claim that atheists do not reproduce.
C) Makes a hasty generalization that all atheists share the same sexual orientation and emotional state, without sufficient evidence.
D) Mistakenly treats antinatalism as a universal characteristic of atheists rather than a personal philosophical choice that varies among individuals.
E) Overlooks the possibility that atheism can continue to exist independently of the reproductive choices of current atheists, through the persuasion of others or change of belief over time.
The whole point of the commenter is stupid because if atheists do not reproduce then every atheist is a child of a theist, hence atheism will continue to exist as long as theists exist.
I'd say E undermines their point the most completely, whereas the others undermine their garbage argument. Based on this and not much else I'm inclined to believe that E would have the best odds of leading to a conclusive discussion.
Thirty-nine per cent of Australians now identify as non-religious, up from 30 per cent in 2016 and almost double the 22 per cent of Australians who ticked the “no religion” box a decade ago.
In the mid-1960s, less than 1 per cent of people in Australia identified as having no religion.
A blip indeed. Statistically their grandchildren are likely to be non-religious, good chance of being atheist.
Instead I will align my life centred around a story about a dude who sought out 12 guys to hang out with which then concluded with a supper where he asked everyone to pretend that they were consuming his body.
I don’t know any highly educated Christian of my generation (millennial) who is deeply religious. Even if they tell everyone that they are religious they rarely go to Church or even pray at home, and their Bible is somewhere in a box in the attic. They don’t even indoctrinate their kids with their religion. Chances are high that their kids will be atheist or agnostic. They will run the world.
Christianity is slowly dying out in the developed world at least in the parts with a good education system and where most people trust the sciences. I bet the same will happen to Islam in the west. Once the third gen muslim migrants are all dead the generations afterwards will slowly turn non-religious. End of the century the descendants of Muslims who are in the West for generations and middle class and educated will be atheist or non practicing Muslims.
Someone needs to send him a list of Atheists. God blesses Atheists with fame, fortune, and children. If he gave up his false belief in God, he too could have a blessed life.
Arthur Miller (rich, famous, married Marilyn Monroe)
Ahh yes exactly how biology and psychology works . You heardbit here first people only atheists can make atheists because duh GOD and not science. I wonder why god didn't give the people who follows it brain oh i got it because then they won't follow it.
I never understood how this have sense. I could be depressed because life is shit unfair and I can do almost nothing to change it. But at least I am not pretending to have an imaginary friend that solves all my problems. I think it is better to accept the reality as shit as it could be instead of lying oneself to be happier.
there was an argument that was popular in the 70s about how evolution was aiming at intelligence; the breeding habits of the retarded have disproven it.
I mean, selection is always against antinatalism - even within early Christianity.
For example:
A woman in the crowd said to him, "Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you."
He said to [her], "Lucky are those who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Lucky are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.'"
Gospel of Thomas saying 79
You see the call and response broken up into two separated parts in Luke, but the mirroring indicates they probably went together originally.
The antinatalism isn't just here, it's also in surviving fragments of a lost work followers of the above also followed:
Salome saith: Until when shall men continue to die? [...] and it is advisedly that the Lord makes an answer: So long as women bear children. [...]
And why do not they who walk by anything rather than the true rule of the Gospel go on to quote the rest of that which was said to Salome: for when she had said, 'I have done well, then, in not bearing children?' (as if childbearing were not the right thing to accept)
The Gospel of the Egyptians as preserved in Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 9. 64 & 66
So there's a bit of irony in this person making fun of beliefs involving not having kids dying out when there's a decent chance the original advice of the person they intend to believe over all others was actually saying the same thing and the proponents of that group thinned out over the years since his death leaving cannonical Christianity to thrive due to literal survivorship bias.
Amusingly, this group's alleged teachings overlap with modern 'atheism' in a number of other things too, such as their inclusion of atomism into their beliefs and entertaining the rejection of intelligent design in favor of Lucretius's naturalism.
You and the billions before will have died expecting a bright light and the warm embrace of your gods, but then suddenly seeing the inescapable darkness approach.
The absolute hilarity of that fact makes the few of us infinitely more powerful than any of your gods.