I'm using a dictionary to help you, since you said you didn't know what it is. I'm getting a bit fed up with your 'research' on atheists. If you want to know what instinct is, look it up. Here, I'll help you along a bit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct
If you're fed up, feel free not to clutter up the thread with stuff you're not willing to discuss. I'm interested in what you consider as innate behaviour, if you're ever willing to explore that.
First you have to establish that it is reasonable for theists and atheists to hold different views on what 'instinct' is S.A.M. You haven't done that, Enmos has provided information, but your continual nit picking is just another of your dishonest debating tactics, and you end up stuffing a straw man with your own unfounded assertions. 'they' being atheists? Don't theists read dictionaries, S.A.M? None of the sources Enmos cited drew a distinction between theists and atheists, so why are you? Oh, because you are dishonest!
S.A.M. yet another dishonest diversion. If I choose to have you on ignore, or reply to the odd dishonesty of yours I see others quoting, that's my choice. Doesn't change the fact that you still can't debate honestly, and are always shifty, and attempt to divert the thread when it becomes clear you have no arguments.
Anyone willing to render a description of the science of intuition? Genetic memory perhaps? With all the concern over friends getting religious [:runaway:], it might be a good idea to examine your own beliefs instead of panicking over those of others.
Somewhere, back over the horizon, was the idea of "purpose". That, not "consequences", is at issue. Unless you are confusing cause and effect, existence of pattern, etc, with purpose. You seem to think that the entire universe and everything in it has to have "purpose" for a human to have a "purpose" of their own. I have no idea why you would believe something like that, but if you are simply confusing "purpose" with "role in a pattern of cause and effect" then everything is explained, and we can move on.
I'm asking why theists believe God gives them a purpose. The issue isn't intuition. It's instinct. Who's panicking???
oh man replying to you has always been a hassle..you keep collecting what people say and mix thm as you want and then reach a conclusion that makes sense only to you(if it doesPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) what i'm saying..(and i made it clear because i foresaw this somehow)..is that purpose IS simply the will to get better.. if you are an animal, the only better you want to have is to live, opposed to the worse of dying.. but some people actually might have purpose with edges broader than life and death..a better that is better than living, opposed to worse worse than death..that is why people die for honor and love, they sacrifice them selves..their life. so living COULD be your purpose of life..just like an animal.. now how does this conclude that god has no purpose? is it because he doesn't die?? well i've just said that people who die have reasons to live above the fear of death.. is it since living is a purpose then we don't need god as a purpose of life?? same thing, just because animals live only to live doesn't mean we cant use our brains to live for something better and more everlasting, and concerned with god? the real question is, stranger? what purpose of life is meaningful if it isn't rlated to god? it's as oli said.."why bother"? because he is a thinking human.. if he chose to live like a brainless animal he wouldn't need to ask that question.