{"author":"David G. McAfee","author_id":"David+G.+McAfee","total_quotes":36,"quotes":[{"text":"If one religion were 'true,' we would expect to see, even if only once in all of recorded history, a religious missionary that had stumbled upon a culture that shared the same revelations — brought forth by the same deity.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["atheism","christianity","evidence","false","god","missionary","true-religion"],"id":9936,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"If there's a god, it knows exactly what it would take to convince me and has refused to provide it. In fact, it has gone to great lengths to hide any evidence of its existence. That doesn't seem like a deity that wants to be worshiped to me.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["atheism","burden-of-proof","deism","deity","evidence","gods","theism"],"id":35438,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"If we presuppose that Jesus and God are one—as many (but not all) Christians do—then we can also infer that Jesus Christ was omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent, and it is with this that the idea of sacrifice is lost. The martyrdom was premeditated on the part of the Creator, and Jesus was resurrected afterward—showing that the act of ‘death’ was not an inconvenience for the immortal ‘man’ who was said to have known that he would be resurrected.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["contradiction","glitch","jesus","knowledge","omnipotent","resurrection","sacrifice"],"id":41795,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"Miracles are commonplace in religious scripture. Our ancient ancestors are said to have felt Jesus' wounds, verified Muhammad's ascent to heaven, and even interacted with their respective deities directly. Today, believers have no such luxury. They are forced to rely on blind faith that these things occurred, that people were at one time able to overcome or render inert natural laws.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["christianity","miracles","modern","modern-miracle","muslim"],"id":42183,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"A question for Christians who accept evolution: When did we gain a 'soul'? Did Homo habilis have a soul? Homo ergaster? Did God only spontaneously add a soul when we evolved into Homo sapiens?","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["christian","christianity","evolution","flaw","homo-ergaster","homo-habilis","religious-believers","soul"],"id":52034,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"We are all born free from all religious affiliations and only come to believe in such things after being introduced to it ― so, atheism is the default position. Although some children are not indoctrinated with a specific religion before the age of reason, there are many more who are.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["atheism","atheist","born-atheist","dad","default-position","indoctrination","mom","religion-christianity"],"id":61892,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"Regardless of your religious beliefs, you should never tell a mourning mother that it was 'God's plan.' For some people, that can be worse than saying nothing at all. For a non-believer, the words that are meant to console a religious person can do quite the opposite.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["atheist","god-s-plan","grief-beyond-belief","religion-and-grief"],"id":143542,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"Explaining the unknown should be left to science, questions of good and bad behavior can be answered by ethics, and inspiration is often found in the arts. There’s no longer a need for the social construct of religion.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["art","ethics","inspiration","religion","science","social-construct"],"id":153690,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"Isn't it amazing that, historically, the 'Prince of Peace' has most often been introduced to new cultures through extreme violence? European and American colonialists bring this disparity to light in a way that makes me wish that forced conversion didn't work so extraordinarily well.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["colonialism","crusades","forced-conversion","native-americans","religion","spread-of-christianity","violence","war"],"id":156945,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"},{"text":"Some people spend their entire lives devoted to a religion that claims to be the ‘right’ religion... They often deny scientific evidence that contradicts their archaic holy books, they sometimes oppress those who disagree with them, and they always do what they do in the name of an unknowable deity... But sometimes, they wake up. Occasionally, they realize that all religions are man-made and that none of them are ‘right.’ And when they do, they can live happy and fulfilling lives without dogma and without anticipating or fearing an afterlife.","author":"David G. McAfee","tags":["atheism","dogma","indoctrination","religion"],"id":167487,"author_id":"David+G.+McAfee"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":36,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}