In article <3t-dnVSMzYsUHL3cRVn-oQ@comcast.com>,
"L Perez" <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> wrote:

Please tell us why you were an atheist.

because I didn't believe in God

Why did you say "in God" rather than "in gods"? Did you, as an atheist,
view God as something different from gods?

L Perez <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> wrote:

I understand all that, better than you could possibly know since I
used to believe that, having once been an atheist myself

Abner Mintz wrote:

If you truly once believed it, then why did you so badly misrepresent
it when you presented your distorted version? A person who once
understood a view *should* be able to present it honestly even if
they no longer agree with it.

L Perez <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> wrote:

I did

Let's take a look and see how well you did:

How do atheists view the world?

OK, this is the statement of what you will supposedly be addressing
in your post.

It seems that since they deny God,

Strike 1: Atheists do not view themselves as 'denying God' - we
see ourselves as not believing in any gods. *Theists* see them
as denying God, since the theists see God as a fact and thus see
the atheists as denying that fact. You didn't even manage to
show the atheist viewpoint for the first part of the first sentence.

they have it in their mind
that man will eventually solve his own problems... without God.

While some few atheists may hold this view, most atheists I know
hold that as we solve problems, new problems will occur. So
the first part of this statement may apply to a few atheists, but
only to those few. The last part of the statement ... 'without God'
is again from the theist perspective. To one of the few atheists
who agreed with your statement, 'his own problems' would be
sufficient. 'Without God' is superfluous, since from an atheist
perspective 'without God' goes without saying. Only a theist believes
that something *can be* 'with God'.

This is of course, faulty thinking.

This is not part of how atheists view the world. This is a
statement of your Christian beliefs.

If there were no God then man and the earth are most certainly
headed for extinction. Destrution of the environment and nuclear
weapons guarantee that.

This is not part of how atheists view the world. This is a
statement of your Christian beliefs.

God has promised in His Word the Bible not to allow man to
destroy the earth but instead, before man crosses that 'point
of no return' God will destroy those ruining the earth
(Revelation 11:18) and give it to the people who
acknowledge that God and God alone has the right to rule
His creation, mankind (Psalm 37:9-11; Revelation 21:1-7)

This is not part of how atheists view the world. This is a
statement of your Christian beliefs.

So, in analysis of your post, you had five paragraphs. One
announced that you were going to discuss how atheists view
the world. One had one part of one sentence on how atheists
view the world (the other two parts were heavily Christianized),
and that one part was atypical of most atheists. The other
three paragraphs were Christian attacks on the one faulty
description of one aspect of atheist thought.

I just don't see anything that shows that you did a good job
of representing how atheists view the world. To me, it looks
like you did a very poor job of representing one aspect of
how atheists view the world in one part of one sentence (spending
the other two parts setting up attacks on it and them), and then
devoted the rest of your post to attacking it.

Is this really what you consider a fair and honest job of
representing your prior views?

L Perez <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> wrote:

I understand all that, better than you could possibly know since I
used to believe that, having once been an atheist myself

Abner Mintz wrote:

If you truly once believed it, then why did you so badly misrepresent
it when you presented your distorted version? A person who once
understood a view *should* be able to present it honestly even if
they no longer agree with it.

L Perez <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> wrote:

I did

Let's take a look and see how well you did:

How do atheists view the world?

OK, this is the statement of what you will supposedly be addressing
in your post.

It seems that since they deny God,

Strike 1: Atheists do not view themselves as 'denying God' - we
see ourselves as not believing in any gods. *Theists* see them
as denying God, since the theists see God as a fact and thus see
the atheists as denying that fact. You didn't even manage to
show the atheist viewpoint for the first part of the first sentence.

they have it in their mind
that man will eventually solve his own problems... without God.

While some few atheists may hold this view, most atheists I know
hold that as we solve problems, new problems will occur. So
the first part of this statement may apply to a few atheists, but
only to those few. The last part of the statement ... 'without God'
is again from the theist perspective. To one of the few atheists
who agreed with your statement, 'his own problems' would be
sufficient. 'Without God' is superfluous, since from an atheist
perspective 'without God' goes without saying. Only a theist believes
that something *can be* 'with God'.

This is of course, faulty thinking.

This is not part of how atheists view the world. This is a
statement of your Christian beliefs.

If there were no God then man and the earth are most certainly
headed for extinction. Destrution of the environment and nuclear
weapons guarantee that.

This is not part of how atheists view the world. This is a
statement of your Christian beliefs.

God has promised in His Word the Bible not to allow man to
destroy the earth but instead, before man crosses that 'point
of no return' God will destroy those ruining the earth
(Revelation 11:18) and give it to the people who
acknowledge that God and God alone has the right to rule
His creation, mankind (Psalm 37:9-11; Revelation 21:1-7)

This is not part of how atheists view the world. This is a
statement of your Christian beliefs.

So, in analysis of your post, you had five paragraphs. One
announced that you were going to discuss how atheists view
the world. One had one part of one sentence on how atheists
view the world (the other two parts were heavily Christianized),
and that one part was atypical of most atheists. The other
three paragraphs were Christian attacks on the one faulty
description of one aspect of atheist thought.

I just don't see anything that shows that you did a good job
of representing how atheists view the world. To me, it looks
like you did a very poor job of representing one aspect of
how atheists view the world in one part of one sentence (spending
the other two parts setting up attacks on it and them), and then
devoted the rest of your post to attacking it.

Is this really what you consider a fair and honest job of
representing your prior views?

And it came to pass that "L Perez" <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> did write in
alt.atheism, news:sOSdnX3Uw6xnPrzcRVn-sA@comcast.com:

"Mark Nutter" <manutter51@alethian.org> wrote in message
news:manutter51-E1AF13.09391316082004@corp.newsfeeds.com...

In article <qtWdncaJ89ZOt73cRVn-qA@comcast.com>,
"L Perez" <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> wrote:

Nothing you said has anything to do with how atheists view the
world. Everything you said was about how *you*, a theist, would
view the world if you lost your beliefs and did not replace them
with some different belief system. Since real atheists do have
their own belief systems, any analysis based on the idea that
atheists are just faithless theists is flawed from the base. If
you really want to know how various atheists view the world, ask
us - we will gladly tell you (and, in fact, did so in great
detail when the original poster started this thread).

I understand all that, better than you could possibly know since I
used

to

believe that, having once been an atheist myself

Then you ought to understand that, since atheism is not something you
believe in, what one atheist believes may or may not have anything at
all to do with what another atheist believes. If someone says "I did
not have carrots for supper last night," that tells you nothing about
what he did eat, assuming he ate anything. In the same way, knowing
that a person is an atheist tells you only what he does not believe.
It does not tell you what he believes.

I too used to be an atheist, after having been a devout,
Bible-believing Christian for about 30 years. Christianity is
something that people do believe, so I can speak about what
Christianity teaches. But who knows what atheists believe? Atheism
is not itself a belief.

You: "Atheism itself is not a belief"

And it came to pass that "L Perez" <LPerezDncr@hotmail.com> did write in
alt.atheism, news:sOSdnX3Uw6xnPrzcRVn-sA@comcast.com:

"Mark Nutter" <manutter51@alethian.org> wrote in message
news:manutter51-E1AF13.09391316082004@corp.newsfeeds.com...

Then you ought to understand that, since atheism is not something you
believe in, what one atheist believes may or may not have anything at
all to do with what another atheist believes. If someone says "I did
not have carrots for supper last night," that tells you nothing about
what he did eat, assuming he ate anything. In the same way, knowing
that a person is an atheist tells you only what he does not believe.
It does not tell you what he believes.

I too used to be an atheist, after having been a devout,
Bible-believing Christian for about 30 years. Christianity is
something that people do believe, so I can speak about what
Christianity teaches. But who knows what atheists believe? Atheism
is not itself a belief.

You: "Atheism itself is not a belief"

that is not so
Atheism is the belief that God does not exist

You: "Atheism is the belief..."

You are contradicting yourself. That aside...

Thae definition "Atheism is the belief that God does not exist" is one
possible type of atheism, often called "strong atheism". However many
atheists would describe themselves as "weak" atheists: "I lack belief in
all gods".

Your definition implies a burden of proof on the atheist to prove that
"God" (whatever that means) does not exist. The definition of weak
atheism I have provided does not.