How can we all be athiests

Religion would be functionally irrelevant if so many folks weren't so compelled by their faith to indoctrinate others, by force if need be. Almost by definition religion isn't neutral and can't live-and-let-live. Expand, adapt, grow or die. There is a strange evolutionary symmetry to this that I find to be sadly amusing.

Hydro

I can't help but feel you all are talking about the three big ones here. My religion does not advocate proselytizing or damn other faiths or even have the tenant of damnation at all. No hell, no heaven just some abstract concepts of an afterlife and a good deal to say about living a fair and honest life. Religion is often a box people put their spirituality into, sometimes the box is too small and they are scared if they let out it might run away from them.
I have to add some things...
I once thought that perhaps I would be an atheist but being overly intellectual yet still a bit superstitious I decided agnosticism was more my view on things. I decided I would be a soft agnostic too. I would not say that god is unknowable but that god is probably unknowable in any way that could be expressed with words and that I surely did not know. Atheism to me seems to express more of a view that there is no such thing as god or gods at all and that these things are merely constructs of various minds to explain any sort of unknown thing that might later be knowable, like the nature of the sun and moon for example. Later on down the road I decided there was more to the beliefs of religions new and old than what the logical or analytical side of me could grasp and that perhaps to leave agnosticism behind I had to internalize and "feel" some sort of spirituality against my logical sides better judgement. Thus I "feel" I have achieved some sort of gnosis even though I think I would be foolish to ever think I could impose that spiritual knowledge on another or even think that it would apply to them if I could. Spirituality TO ME should be personal and only then can religion really fulfill its intended purpose. Of course this is just opinion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality

My religion states that you are all minor characters in a big play called "Ghostwes". Now, if I can only find out who's directing the damned thing...

I would rate you as agnostic or at least pacifistic, usually athiests go out of their way to make sure other religions dont influence any one at all.

But then again, Atheism is sort of become a new religion, just with a different following then most.

@ Ghostwes!

http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=972

@ TheGreatEmperor

Athiesm doesn't entail being militant about it. Richard Dawkins doesn't represent the majority of Athiests who generally follow a "faith is private" line.

Then again, I'm just guessing based on my own experience here.

I'm sorry, Starstriker1, but my own personal creation mythos leaves no room for silliness like dinosaurs. I mean, obviously, the world began at 4:08am on August 30th, 1970. Dinosaurs? Pfft. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed. You can all begin your existences anew again when I wake up.

I am not just playing word games here,
I am a total athiest. I do not believe in any God,

I know that I will not go to hell, it doesn't exist
When I die, I will mearly "shut down" my brain will stop working, there is nothing to fear apart from the unpleasant fact of death itself,

I hope it will be painless and quick.

Thats all.

Marcus.

While I don't want to get involved in a serious discussion of religion, as an atheist, I must beg to differ with what the TheGreatEmperor said above.

Atheism is simply the absence of belief in a deity; it does not imply being anti-religion, nor does pacifism really have anything to do with it. It is also decidedly *not* a religion, in any sense of the definition.

"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Dan Hirschberg

Meanwhile, agnostics simply believe that one cannot know for sure so there's no point hedging one's bets on belief in god(s) or disbelief. Fence-sitters, basically

For myself, I don't care what people believe, so long as it does not affect me or my loved ones -- I find fundamentalists of all stripes dangerous.

I almost agreed with you,
but the need to mention "fundamentalists" is a bad idea in this thread
please don't corrupt this idea with some sickness.

I hate ppl that need to bring terrorism into thoughts of faith

I hope that nobody else thinks to corrupt this thread with hatred.

Marcus

Huh? Not sure what "hatred" or "sickness" you're referring to here, MarcusCardiff... and I didn't mention terrorism at all.

I mean, some terrorists are fundamentalists, certainly, but not all fundamentalists are terrorists, surely?

I was, of course, referring to fundamentalism in the religious sense only, and, frankly, terrorism didn't even enter my mind as I wrote it.

Perhaps you simply misunderstood what I was saying? In any case, no harm done. Have a good night.

Trying to be a poet, Marcus?

Judging by your Original Post, you don't know enough about stuff to even ask good questions. I suggest that you try to find a philosophy class at some post secondary place. You don't need to enroll, just ask the teacher if you may sit in and listen.

I also suggest that you avoid looking up philosophy on the internet. Its far too easy for someone to get confused in such an advanced, and complex subject.



Webcomic... about dinosaurs... talking about philosophy... how... odd...

I'm not an expert in solipsism, but anti-solipsism doesn't sound like a good theory (which the dinos seem to agree). The fact that someone imagines you, provides you with some form of existance, making you an imaginary entity. It might not be the most ideal existance, but it would be an existance, which is not compatible with anti-solipsism.

________________
I'm debating anti-solipsism. Evidence enough that I need a life.

You just stumbled upon the great fallacy that many athiests (though not all) make. You said "I know."

I know that there is a God, and I know what He wants me to do. How can I say that I know this? Because I believe in revalation, that God does speak to man. I accept the witness of those who He has called as Prophets, who have seen Him, have heard His voice, and lead His church. I have what would hold up in any court as evidence that something happened as evidnece that He exists (not to mention my own witness).

However, what can an athiest ever truely know? Can you prove there is no life after death? If there isn't then no one will ever no becuase there is no coming back.

Can it be proven that God does not exist? The only way to know this is to have all knowledge of everything, for so long as there is even an iota of knowledge unknown then He may exist. The only way that anyone could honestly say they KNOW that there is no God is to have it revealed to them by a higher power, which defeats the whole point of the argument.

Now, if someone wants to beleive there is no God, then fine. That is thier choice, and I will fight anyone who tries to take that away from them (I might not win, but that's not the point). I do get tired though of religion being labeled as "superstition". I can produce evidence that there is a God, and yet there is no evidence that there is none. Oh, there is plenty of philosopy, rhtetoric, and conjecture that says there is no God, but that is not evidence.

Looking back I may have come off a bit strong, and my intention is not to offened. I would like to ask those who consider tehmselves atheist, how is it possible that you can "know" that God does not exist?

Hi!

I don't know, but in my universe God is not needed.

BR, Iztok

When you say "(your) universe", do you mean the physical universe that we exist in, or your outlook and understanding of life/existance?

And what evidence would that be Feud?

...and then you start your next sentence with:



This may be sufficient evidence for you to believe, Feud, but it is insufficient for your claim to know.

This is basic epistemology.



We do not need to prove that there is no life after death. The burden of proof is on you, as the one making the assertion.

I'm willing to put my faith in science and rational discourse, perhaps to the same degree that you are willing to trust prophets and revelations. For that reason, we probably won't be able to reach common ground here, which is fine.



And yet, you claim to know that he does exist, without being granted any such powers. Why are we atheists expected to meet standards that you are unwilling to meet yourself?



I appreciate that. Seriously. I would also defend your right to believe whatever you want (unlike some other atheists, regrettably).



I'm not sure if you are being serious when you say this. Assuming you are, can you please provide us with said evidence? Hopefully, you are not referring to what you wrote above, which, I think most here will agree, is not sufficient proof at all.

I agree that it is impossible for me to prove that god does not exist, no more than I could prove that the world is flat or that my socks are magical.



And yet, you have provided nothing more than your own assertions, and those of others, to prove the opposite. In fact, philosophy, rhetoric and conjecture sound like a reasonable starting point for a rational understanding of the world we live in.



You're not being offensive to me, despite your world-view being almost the opposite of mine. I think it's possible to have discussions like this without becoming nasty, and I appreciate you trying. I hope I come across similarly.



I don't really feel that I need to do this, actually. Until sufficient evidence is provided to the contrary, I don't see any reason to believe in the existence of a god, or even to consider that there might be one. This is basically a case of negative proof.

I don't follow any religion nor do I belief in any deity, higher being, the afterlife or whatever. I got raised as christian, but never had faith. In younger years due to ignorance, now by choice.

Why? Well, there are many different reasons.

1) First of all, there's the historical background. Look at the knowledge we take for granted nowadays. Lots of stuff which are natural for us, people did not know about in the past.
Take for example the plague. Today we know its caused by bacteria and we know how to fight them. We also know about proper hygiene to prevent infection in the first place.
But in the past, nothing was known. Yet they wanted to know where the plague came from. Religion at least gave them an answer, as in "And the mighty one spoke: He who is sinful will suffer from the plague".
Religion seems to have an answer for everything, that pleases people. And yet religions are so deciteful. If there's something even they can't explain, the usual answer is "Have faith, his ways are unfathomable for mortals".

2) The world can be a very cruel place. Along with knowledge comes cognition. Cognition that we're alone in this universe, we're totally insignificant and eventually everything will end: Our lives, what we've achieved and finally the universe itself. This is a horrible idea, it doesn't give us any hope. Religion on the other hand offers means of escape: Salvation, rebirth, resurrection, ascension and so on. It takes a weight from our shoulders none likes to bear. Nonetheless it's self-adulation.

3) There are hundreds of religions in the world each with their own deity/deities or the lack of a deity and each with a different way how to achieve salvation. And each has their own creation myth. "God made the Earth in 7 days", or "Earth is the back of a giant turtle raising from the sea" and so on.
Obviously, we're all living on the same earth, so only one creation myth could be true. But statistically, whatever religion you're following, it's far more likely that another one is the real one and that your's is wrong.
So doesn't it make more sense to say that all religions are wrong?

4) Holy Books, Scrolls, Tablets and their imposed rules. Way too often, the words in the holy texts get taken literally without interpretation and reflection of the historical background.
Take for example the "eye for an eye" phrase. It has been misunderstood for ages, as means to demand retaliation. However, you need to see how this phrase came to be. It's original task was to fight against blood freud amongst the tribes or in general, any two parties. "Eye for an eye" was a rule to prevent escalation, a punishment should be in relation to a crime.
Another example: In some religions, people may not eat meat from pigs and other "dirty" animals. Let's see the historical background again: In the past, people didn't have fridges, little was known about hygiene and in some cases (e.g. Judaism), people lived in rather warm countries where it's even harder to keep meat fresh.
People have observed that meat from some animals stays edible longer than the meat of other animals and people stayed more healthy from not eating some sorts of meat. So the logical consequence (in that context) was to forbid people to eat some sort of meat.
But these rules are hammered into the heads of people like into stone, there is absolutely no reason to follow them anymore.

5) Word of mouth, translations, loss of context
Let's have a look at the new testament. It got written years after the life and death of Jesus. Word of mouth was used to carry the story through the gap. And of course it got changed by that. Things got exaggerated and glorified. In essence, it's nothing more than a hyped urban legend anymore. There's a core of truth, but the details have been skewed so much that you can't take it as fact anymore.
Next thing are the translations. In order to translate a text, you have to interpret it. Words can have different meaning, you need to understand the context to translate it properly. And sometimes the difference is quite subtle. And language changes. A word can mean one thing today and another thing tomorrow. An example for a word that has almost completed this change of meaning: Gay. In the past it just meant something like happy, but nowadays it means homosexual.
Take a look at Arabic. Imagine someone who speaks modern Arabic with someone who lived over a millennium ago? It's still the same language, the same words, the same grammar. Yet words would have different meanings or would used in different contexts. And both would be unable to understand most sayings and phrases the other one uses. To complicate things, Arabic texts are hard to read due to the lack of vowels in the text. This even leaves more room for explanation.
Please forgive my gross simplification, but recent studies have revealed that the texts suggest that someone who fought for Islam doesn't get 72 virgins in heaven, but instead 72 white raisins. (At historical times a luxury good)

I could give many more reasons, but for now it should suffice.

For my part, I reject faith and religion based on these arguments.

Hi!

Yes. To my current knowledge there was only one moment where God could interfere: when our universe was created in so called Big Bang, and its parameters were set. The rest is physics - known and (yet) unknown.

Want to know the origin of the Creator idea? When first human with enough intelligence made a tool, and then looked around and asked himself: "Who made THIS?"

Now we know. God is not needed anymore. We're on our own.

But if it happens he exists, I'd like to be in front of him for the next several milleniums kicking his b.... to make him suffer, because he didn't prevent all the needless suffering his creations had to endure.

BR, Iztok

I am real, everyone else are actors in a tv show called, The Max Clarke show!!
This is a test by God, because erm, ice cream tastes nice, but too much ice cream means you get brain freeze...

I would love to know what influences shaped this belief of yours.

May the flying spaghetti monster bless you all with his noodly appendage.

Ramen, brother!

Religion began when man gain knowledge and learn stuff by exploration. They fear things that they don't understand by creating religion and state that it the act of god.

Those who prefer to seek more answer via experiments instead of submitting to this particular reasoning that everything is created by god, believe more in science.

Give it 3 thousand years, religion will disappear when man make use of science to turn themselves into gods.

I got two views of life.

1) Life is just a series of "if then else" statements that is constantly growing and growing. It will finally stop growing when your hardwares all fail. Then you are simply deem obsolete, throw you in a tiny coffin and cya..like how you throw your things into the dustbin.

2) Everything in this universe are made of energy or make use of energy. Energy cannot be created nor destroy but it can be converted. It can represent data. Your body is just a vessel converting energies from one form to another. Several energies changes, get converted and forms the soul as they get meshed together over time containing your memories and experiences as data. When you die, this energy won't be destroy and will be simply returned to the realm where all energies reside. You didn't die nor were you in hell or heaven. You are just simply part of the universe.

I agree.