Atheism doesn't have a persuasive message...

Here is an assertion ~ a motion for debate, as it were ~ based on something another poster said earlier today"

Atheism has a superficial appeal that can pull in a few people but it ultimately sputters out: it doesn't have any truly persuasive message.

To my way of thinking, atheism is a lack of belief, Furthermore, it is unaffected by the claims of religionists who insist their folklores offer a "persuasive message".

Why do some people ~ not atheists, mind you ~ suggest that atheism should have a "persuasive message" when, in fact, propagating messages is surely a matter for people operating in the realm of competing religious doctrines?

Originally posted by @fmf
Here is an assertion ~ a motion for debate, as it were ~ based on something another poster said earlier today"

[b]Atheism has a superficial appeal that can pull in a few people but it ultimately sputters out: it doesn't have any truly persuasive message.

To my way of thinking, atheism is a lack of belief, Furthermore, it is unaffected by the claims o ...[text shortened]... messages is surely a matter for people operating in the realm of competing religious doctrines?[/b]

Christian. - "I'm important. My enemies will perish......I'm important."

Atheist. - "In the great scheme of things, I'm not that important. My enemies might prosper, but ultimately, we'll all perish."

“There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.”
- G.K. Chesterton

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously, but to take it seriously one must be already mad.”

Aleister Crowley,

“It is because ye are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honour of your Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference. The evidence I have produced, and shall still produce in the course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness of a priest, relieve and tranquilize the minds of millions: it will free them from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which priest-craft and the Bible had infused into their minds, and which stood in everlasting opposition to all their ideas of his moral justice and benevolence.”

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

'Religion is a delusion propagated by a combination of ignorance, art, and fear, fanned into longevity and ubiquity by the power it gave those in command.'


P. W. Atkins

Saved the best for last:

'I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.'

Stephen Roberts

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
“It is because ye are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honour of your Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference. The evidence I have produced, and shall still produce in the course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without authority, will, whilst it wounds t ...[text shortened]... on to all their ideas of his moral justice and benevolence.”

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Struth!

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
C. S. Lewis