Any Atheists here?

[mribas1981]

@Ebola: Ya, the term "atheist" has quite the social stigma; and quite the negative one. There are polls that show Atheists are some of the most distrusted, disliked, and even hated groups in America.

I don't know how many have read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion but he proposes a scale of belief to disbelief, from 1-7. 1=100% certainty in belief in God, 4= equiprobabilty of existence of God (true agnosticism), 7=100% certainty in non-existence of God. He places himself at 6. Basically saying he is about as certain there is a God as he is there are fairies or leprachauns... Sure, he's never seen them so there is a possibility, but to believe in them is still pretty irrational. Not to use his thoughts as my own, but I would place my disbelief in the same category, level 6.

I see no logical reason to believe in the existence of a deity or deities. I believe these ideas were constructed by man to explain the unexplained. I think these ideas were than adapted to control the masses. I believe this control then became a very... very effective means of profiteering.

When someone tells me to "prove the non-existence of god" I generally remind them that the burden of proof is not mine to bear. I am happy to explain why I disbelieve:

Jesus' miracles are absurd stories of which we see absolutely nothing even close to the magnitude of these miracles in modern day;
the bible is extremely inaccurate with chronology;
this idea of an omniscient/omnipotent god who should very well know if and when we are going to sin, who then sends his only son to be tortured and killed to forgive us of the sins he knew we were going to commit anyways is... pretty fkd up, and makes zero sense;
A god who really really wanted to give a message probably wouldn't use an historic text to convey said message. I am certain he could come up with a more efficient, and believable method;
The fact that your religion is dependent upon where you are born tells me that there is very little truth to any given religion;
Right and wrong is culturally relevant, which tells me that religious-based morality is a human construct.

Then you get to the creation/intelligent design arguments, and again I can give my reasons why I don't believe:

Life has many imperfections that an omniscient god never would have made.

the evidence for Evolution is irrefutable. Anyone that says otherwise simply doesn't understand it.

As tremendously vast as our Universe is, the probability of life HAD to occur. I understand that the probability of life itself is highly improbable; but when you consider that our galaxy alone has billions of stars, and then consider that there are billions of other galaxies that each have billions of stars... it's pretty hard to disbelieve that the conditions for life wouldn't occur somewhere. Every star has it's "Goldilocks zone" where liquid water can exist. Once that happens, it's a matter of chance.

The forces in the universe are predictable and universal. We can see and understand how energies and bodies in space will interact, and this understanding has led us to an understanding how things are formed/destroyed/evolved. The idea of a god is no longer necessary.

And part of me does in fact have issue with religion. A lot of people say "can't you just let people that believe just carry on with their belief?" And then I think about how religion has impeded our growth in terms of scientific discovery. There was about 2000 years where religions persecuted ideas that went against their teachings. Earth is flat? Sun revolves around the earth? In modern day, it's stem cells. Contraception. gay-rights. Teaching kids the earth is 6000 years old and dinosaurs and man lived together? Get dafuq outta here haha. List goes on.

You start teaching kids this crap, and when they grow up, what could have been a bright, intelligent student that goes on to cure cancer, does something stupid instead like devoting their life to the creation museum. (ugh)

And I also believe that this existence is our one and only existence. Your ~70+ years of life is all you have. When I see the people I love and care about wasting that existence acting as a slave to some supernatural fairy-fukr that they think gives a $hit, then yes, it makes me a little put-off.

I could write more, but I'll save it for later.

 

[L2R]

^i hope you realise that you are debating the bible, which is an extremely short scope when dealing with any "god".

if you would only like to refer to written text, you'd find just as much "God" in harry potter (or even dawkins own early works where he doesn't even try to engage with religion).

so if the entire basis for your atheism is the countarguments against fundamentalist interpretations of the bible, you are in essence basing this on a misinterpretation of a mostly irrelevant document. that's hardly a sound basis for any decision.

 

[thujone]

I'm an atheist because I'm too busy caring about all the incredible shit people take for granted to believe in some esoteric BS. Do you realize this message is being transmitted to you via signals moving at nearly three hundred thousand kilometers per second across fibreoptic cables lacing the floors of the world's oceans, from a magic box loaded up the ass with transistors in nanometre-thick circuits capable of resolving millions of equations per second, powered by an electric grid fuelled by atomic chain reactions and generators moving under the roar of the most powerful waterfall on the planet?

In my mind, a person would have to be either completely retarded or completely insane to marginalize such awesome wonders in order to waste their time on a pew every Sunday morning listening to some pious cunt talk about a long-dead carpenter and his band of merry disciples. Who gives a fuck? Teach me something awesome instead.

 

[Tromps]

i think it is silly how much emphasis is put on the choice between belief and disbelief on all sides. it's portrayed as the most important thing, but in actuality, it is the absolute least important thing to be concerned about. there is nothing less important to our lives that the existence or non-existence of a deity or more.

Unless you're wrong.

Teaching kids the earth is 6000 years old and dinosaurs and man lived together? Get dafuq outta here haha. List goes on... the evidence for Evolution is irrefutable. Anyone that says otherwise simply doesn't understand it... You start teaching kids this crap, and when they grow up, what could have been a bright, intelligent student that goes on to cure cancer

I believe in God, I wasn't taught the world is 6000 years old or man lived with dinosaur? I believe the universe is 13 billion years old. What does this have to do with believing in God?
You can list a narrow and small percentage of Christian's that believe the universe is some thousands of years old, but the majority of Christians (Roman Catholics) teach the world is 13 billion years old. Muslims also generally believe the universe is 13 billion years old, plenty more people believe in God and everything science teaches at the same time.

I have no problem with the evolution, or the modern creation story accounting the development of our universe, galaxies, stars and earth.
How does this dis-prove God?

Please, you really think religion is mainly responsible for 'dumbing down civilization' ? There are far more concerning factors that are dumbing down society which leads to kids being drop-outs with no education. The past few decades US collage graduates have not been increasing, and youths belief in God is on the decline. Some of our worlds and histories smartest people are people of faith, and also people who don't believe in God. We should be putting out differences aside and our heads together for serious advancements such as space exploration, I don't believe God created our universe so large (and expanding) to keep us on this planet earth forever, especially with our capacity for collective knowledge and intelligence.

I understand that the probability of life itself is highly improbable; but when you consider that our galaxy alone has billions of stars, and then consider that there are billions of other galaxies that each have billions of stars... it's pretty hard to disbelieve that the conditions for life wouldn't occur somewhere.

I'm willing to bet there was, will be, or is currently other life in far places of the universe. What does this have to do with atheism?

When someone tells me to "prove the non-existence of god" I generally remind them that the burden of proof is not mine to bear.

We found more common ground. I agree, in opposite. I don't have to prove God exists, in-fact I can't, that's not what faith is. Neither of us can prove our convictions.

We can see and understand how energies and bodies in space will interact, and this understanding has led us to an understanding how things are formed/destroyed/evolved. The idea of a god is no longer necessary.

Science and the modern creation story, it can't account for how the universe was created or set in motion, clearly a piece of the puzzle is missing - unknowing. God is the missing piece we can't find, and puts the puzzle together.

Do you realize this message is being transmitted to you via signals moving at nearly three hundred thousand kilometers per second across fibreoptic cables lacing the floors of the world's oceans, from a magic box loaded up the ass with transistors in nanometre-thick circuits capable of resolving millions of equations per second, powered by an electric grid fuelled by atomic chain reactions and generators moving under the roar of the most powerful waterfall on the planet?

Incredible isn't it? How intelligently built we are for learning, possibilities in God's creation are endless. I can only imagine what kind of powers are roaring within God.

 

[pk.]

Incredible isn't it? How intelligently built we are for learning, possibilities in God's creation are endless. I can only imagine what kind of powers are roaring within God.

...

 

[RobotRipping]

fuck humans were definitely not created by God. Big bang happens, gases are created, molecules created, bounce around everywhere, mass expansion, particles collide and form planets, molecules on planets bounce around hit each other and from there life is formed, through evolution, humans come into existence. There's no fucking way you can deny that. That is what happened.

If God created anything it would be that energy/matter in the first place FFS, as well as the system under which it would act in order to create life. Or perhaps God created/is that cyclical model of brane plates floating around occasionally bouncing into each other creating big bangs all over the place forever and always.

Choosing to be an atheist is the most ignorant fucking thing possible. Maybe some of you mean agnostic? because there's as much evidence to be an atheist as there is to be a theist. Unless you are privy to some information the entire universe isn't, how can you possibly be certain that you know there is no possible way a deity could exist? Seriously, if you can prove logically that there is no possible God, then you'll be the first one to do it.

The only sensible option is to take the stance; "we don't have enough information to say one way or the other."

Now more interestingly:

How is God belief itself?
Well God cannot be observed or rationalised. God can only exists if you 'believe' in it's existence.
Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

and 'If something cannot be rationalized, it cannot exist' what do you mean by rationalized?

I mean that the something must be observable and that it can be understood logically and quantifiable.

and are you saying if something cannot be rationalized that it absolutely, universally, in all possible words, logically cannot exist?

something only exists when we are aware of it within human reason and perception.


and for the sake of argument let's say god is not absolute truth or anything. Let's say God is everything all at once, whatever that may be.

How can a finite being understand an infinite entity? He simply cannot.



(I apologise for my poor argumentative style, I've only recently started adopting these views [I used to be religious])

Regarding God can only exist if belief exists; this is not necessarily true. If God were to exist (let's say hypothetically) then whether you believe in God or not, God exists. You seem to be stuck in this subjective framework of reality. Perception is not reality, it is subjective, there is a world beyond perception. You are currently taking the route of, 'if a tree falls and no one is there to hear/see it then it didn't fall' which is fine but you'll need to back that approach up with a hell of a lot of reason.

Belief and some thing's existence have nothing to do with each other, they aren't mutually exclusive. There's no need to understand God for God to exist. Your argument will fail based on that premise alone. We do not understand many things in this universe right now, but that by no means limits the universes' properties to that of which we can understand.

"something only exists when we are aware of it within human reason and perception. "

that is false, we have counter examples, like gamma rays, black holes, subatomic particles. The way particle physics is going is reshaping our reason. If logic and the rules of logic are subject to change then your premise cannot remain absolutely true, it is variable and not static, and as such is not universal. The rules of logic have changed over the course of the last 3000 years as well, so human reason also changed with it, as did our perceptions as we gained more knowledge of our universe.

It was always the case that Earth revolved around the sun, at one point no one perceived that to be true or perceived that there were many other planets and galaxies and a vast universe, it still existed though despite human reason even. It's like you're saying belief must come before existence. That kind of subjective reality is unsound, we run into the problem of the 'dream' world, see Descartes and Kant.

When you have two opposing sides on the opposite ends of a spectrum, the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle. For you Athiests, you can just sit back and say the burden of proof is on Theists but in reality, look at it objectively and from both sides, the evidence is equal on both sides or inadequate on both sides depending on how you look at it. So to claim absolutely that there is a God or not a God, is silly. We can't possibly know at this time one way or the other.

@thujone: i completely agree with you there, but why would you choose to be an Atheist? if we are capable of such amazing things on Earth, then by reason alone, why do you believe there is no possibility for the existence of a God/Gods/whatever? If things on Earth can amaze us in such a fashion you must have a little tiny room in your view that there is at least a possibility or not that God exist/doesn't exist?

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

Perhaps we theists and atheists can join hands in apatheism.

Actually, that's a good second question, do you think it matters whether or not people share your position of (a)theism?

 

[chasingabee]

does anyone watch The Atheist Experience? i love it and watch it every week.

 

[RobotRipping]

Perhaps we theists and atheists can join hands in apatheism.

Actually, that's a good second question, do you think it matters whether or not people share your position of (a)theism?

apatheism works for me, as the whole issue of whether there is a God or not is entirely irrelevant to humanity at this point anyway.

I don't think it matters whether people share my views or not. People can believe whatever they want to believe, though i prefer it when a person can back up their beliefs using reason/logic and/or being critical rather than just blind faith.

 

[PowerFarts]

does anyone watch The Atheist Experience? i love it and watch it every week.

Yes, I have watched a bunch of episodes on YouTube, they prove that to be a good atheist, you must read the bible.

Anyway, I am back into pondering life after death lately and coming to terms the last few years that this life is all we get, and at death it will be just like before I was born, no existence, no awareness, like a dreamless sleep.
There is no evolutionary advantage to LAD.

People can't grasp 'lights out' , or to 'un-learn' stuff that society told you was true, but is only the product of fear and wishful thinking. I had to get rid of the baby AND the bathwater, if I am not going to believe in god I have to come to grips on my soul and the realisation there may be no such thing, and no re-uniting with dead relatives either.
(I consider myself an atheist leaning agnostic btw)

It is depressing! No wonder people don't want to give up their gods! It's like a drug that shields them from stark realisation and common sense!
In the past, I tried to be religious, tried to convince myself it's true, I 95% believed in the immortal soul, but the lack of proof kept smacking me in the face.
NDE's are not proof either, I emphasize the 'N", it is not 'C' for 'certain' if you were revived, you NEVER died, therefore the NDE's are a result of a DYING brain, not a dead one.
DEAD is DEAD, I don't know any living dead people to tell me what the afterlife is like or if there is one, or if god is there.
All we have is a very old book written by superstitious people telling us about this stuff, not very good evidence; and this is the only evidence we have.
What am I supposed to think? Yeah, there is DEFINATELY a god!?!?
A thinking person can't say there is a god, or an afterlife, it's all heresay with no evidence.
And faith doesn't work, sorry pal, I can have faith that there is a bar of gold buried in my back yard, should I go check?

 

[tokenname]

^i enjoyed reading that. I've always longed to trust some big magical guy that could carry me when life's too hard for me to deal with. i'd love to give it all over to someone else that i trusted unconditionally. i'm exhausted.

Actually, that's a good second question, do you think it matters whether or not people share your position of (a)theism?

absolutely. it changes nothing as far as how i view them..in that- i view us all as going through this bitch of a life together, really. and whatever helps you make it through the day is great for you. but as to whether i can relate to them in any real, intimate way?
yes. it does. honestly, i think i couldn't completely trust or respect someone enough who believed. i think i see it as a lack of strength. and i know it sounds horrible. i wish i had a better way of wording it.

 

[L2R]

Unless you're wrong.

nope, still no real difference. do you care to elaborate how it is otherwise?

 

[pk.]

Regarding God can only exist if belief exists; this is not necessarily true. If God were to exist (let's say hypothetically) then whether you believe in God or not, God exists.

Isn't believing in a hypothetical faith?

Oh RobotRipping, the rest of your post has hurt my head too much, I still need to make a coffee, it's too early =) but I think I can summarise with something you wrote yourself:

It's like you're saying belief must come before existence.

^Yes. It's like when the ancient Greek philosophers perceived things which could not be proven until later (like Democritus believing that matter was made of atoms, and that it took until the Enlightenment to prove it and make it reality)

(everyone is living a perpetual half-truth; which is truth itself)

 

[psood0nym]

The only hesitation I have toward taking an explicitly atheist position is that no one seems to be able to describe what the concept "god" might point toward, so I'm not sure what's even being rejected.

ebola

I feel similarly. It's entirely plausible to me that there exists intelligences somewhere in existence that are so powerful as to be totally inconceivable to humans. Does that mean I believe in "god?" I assume if some god or gods exists I can't comprehend its nature, so I also doubt my ability to ascribe it values. What's god enough to be "god" exactly?

 

[Lightning-Nl]

Personally, I choose to believe in god because the other option is just depressing. Think about it! We're born, life is hard and sucky and then eternal blackness?! Seriously that's just fucked up.

Another thing I despise is the theory of reincarnation. If I seriously believed I had to live another life after this one - I'd kill myself right now.

 

[RobotRipping]

@pk: lol isn't that a paradox? or simply the nature of the limits of human understanding? I used a hypothetical to prove a point. If belief in God is necessary for God's existence then God could not have possibly created anything. If belief is necessary for the existence of anything then nothing would exist because belief always comes after existence. Belief is a posteriori, however concepts like gravity are a priori, they exist whether we experience them or not. Belief is dependent on experience.

You are born a baby with no beliefs but as you develop you come to believe things, whatever thing you later believe in has no bearing on whether that thing you believe in existed or not when you were a baby.

For humans, it may be necessary to take a leap of faith and believe something so we can open our minds to new possibilities but that's just a process for us. Just because we didn't believe in quantum physics didn't mean the principles of quantum physics didn't exist before our belief did, we just did not know it. Or substitute gravity for quantum physics or whatever else you want, the principles that allowed the big bang to shape our universe in such a way preceded our existence.

yes. it does. honestly, i think i couldn't completely trust or respect someone enough who believed. i think i see it as a lack of strength. and i know it sounds horrible. i wish i had a better way of wording it.

perhaps you view it like this because you think believers are afraid of death. I have no fear of death, the way i see it, if i die and there is nothing, i won't know it anyway, and it's peaceful, great, no pain, no misery, no glory, just simple nothingness. Just like before i was born, that would be great. The scarier idea is that upon death you are shot into this DMT like trip and confronted with a strange new reality, where there are even more questions and that this cycle perpetuates forever. In that sense, fear of reincarnation, fear of the unknown, fear of facing a worse reality than the one you left certainly weighs in just as much as the fear of nothingness IMO. On that basis i could just as well say atheism is a cop out, a belief that is a result of a lack of strength, but i don't truly feel that way.

Intuitively, i believe there is something more to this, that's all i have to go on. I think of why? why something rather than nothing? i can't even grasp the concept of nothing ever existing, it just does not process, my brain freezes at the idea. The idea that nothing is some thing is another problem. Nothing is a concept.

nothing is the inverse of everything, without everything, nothing has no meaning, so nothingness cannot exist without some thing existing. Everything there is, is some thing, there is no instance of nothing in this universe. Nothingness exists purely as a concept, like a perfect circle, which we cannot find in reality, apart from that, how do we die and go into nothingness?

if a computer is turned on and then off, the computer is still there, it was there at a time in history, people may even remember that computer, the computer lives through ideas and memories or the concept of the computer itself. Its essence remains somewhere, it's inconceivable to me that it just disappears into nothingness, even if it's gone. The very matter it was made of hasn't disappeared, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Everything in the universe, has always been here and will always remain, even when the universe expands so much that it dies. Where that initial energy comes from and why it is there is my big question.


if human consciousness can be analogous to a computer then our very memories, experiences and lives happened, if nothing else, we existed, things happened, energy and matter evolved. Since this energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just rearranged, everything is still there, nothing is lost upon death or destruction, quantitatively. I'm an agnostic slightly leaning theist because i believe life itself or experiencing life is something special, divine, or transcendental. It's ineffable and beautiful, especially with all the suffering. Why have all this, instead of nothing? i'd say because it is special, it's better than nothing.

sorry for the long post, these kinds of puzzles riddle my mind every night pretty much. I wish we could all just push this religious idea of God out of the way, we know the bible is a story written by humans, that is clear as shit, as well as any other religious text. There's no reason to get hung up on that stuff, we can use other concepts of God that are far more reasonable and intuitive to argue for or against, IMO at least.

 

[pk.]

Innate rationalism informs sense perception, sense perception informs innate rationalism.

 

[L2R]

 

[pk.]

^The education system?

 

[jpgrdnr]

do you think it matters whether or not people share your position of (a)theism?

It does in the sense that many people share that position(s), it doesn't occur in isolation. I think having a varied position in a group is important. I don't think you could make sound decisions or conclusions otherwise. The New Atheist argument that Science does not need Religion is false, and is hypocritical. It goes against the very nature of Science - and I agree that God is not something that can be proven empirically. Look at Gravity, its such a wonky theory at best.

Innate rationalism informs sense perception, sense perception informs innate rationalism.

As a question then, the delusional man hears voices which he believes to be the voice of a god. For him it is the voice of a god, based on his senses. This god tells him to do things and he does them. Obviously, as bystanders we can understand that this is not rational. But for him it is. In this case is his god real?