Please tell me there are more Atheists out there...

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Fission. Large atom (large for an atom, that is) is split by a fast moving small particle. It breaks and release huge amounts of energy. Repeat the process a bunch of times, and there you go. Almost nothing expands into becoming alot.
And it didn't just become everything all at once. It took billions of years (for the world to make itself fit for life.)

They justify by saying that their holy book is right. But their holy books were all written by men. Not a deity.

 

Susipasti, IMO there is no ABSOLUTE right or wrong when it comes to religion. Religion - in its purest, non-political form - is all about man's attempts to reconcile himself to the Infinite. There are myriad definitions, from the gods of Mt. Olympus and Valhalla to the one God of Israel (no matter what name you use) to Brahman to the Buddha and beyond. Depending on how each person views the Infinite and his/her place therein, one of these religions will be more comfortable than all the others for defining how that person worships. That's what makes any religion "right" for any individual.

Note that I don't grant anyone the right to say "This is what's right for me, therefore it must be what's right for everyone else, too." As far as I'm concerned, God is more concerned with the simple fact that humans come to some sort of reconciliation rather than the strict format of what that reconcilaition IS.

 

What sort of mysticism are you invoking with this statement?

I assume the Infinite is a proper noun since you have capitalized it. So is it a person or a place or a specific event?

 

hehe, yes.

As a decidely finite thing, I won't attempt to define the Infinite. All I know is that it IS. How each individual defines and relates to the Infinite is the basis for that individual's personal theology.

 

So, apparently what you are saying is that God (is that the Infinite?) is undefinable, and He wants us to reconcile the undefinable.

In other words, accept that as an individual I cannot know everything, and learn to live with it. And that is what God wants? To try to accept this?

Great, I accept it.

I can't know everything.

So I can't prove God doesn't exist.

That doesn't make the supernatural exist you realize.

And rather than throw around Voodoo laced words such as Infinite, you can instead just say "I can't know everything." Voodoo laced words tend to have an influencing effect upon children and emotionally/intellectually weak adults, so try not to take advantage of them.

 

I am making my small contribution to this topic. I am an atheist, and I am proud to be. I am the own master of my life, and answer to life's questions aren't found in a black book with a "holy" symbol on it. Unfortunatly, in times of trouble, humans regress back to the stade of "magic thinking" that some "holy force" will see them through. .

I am proud to be godless. Atheists, rise and shine. Religion is a plague that has controlled the world for way, way, too long time. It's more than time to trash this .

Just my 0,02$.

 

Absolutely beautiful, New Order, beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself. And in fact, the religion being a plague is what I tried to say, and then got bashed into the ground by Chev and the religious fanatics. So bravo, good man.

 

I am glad that you agree, Saber. And I am also glad to know that there are similar-minded people on here.

I will not jump in the debate about religion. I will stand firmly by me belief that all religion is a plague that should be completly sweeped out of existance. Religion has never made the world a better place. It has just blackened and bloodied out history.

I am not afraid of getting bashed by Chev, or by anyone else. Bash on me as much as you want, I WILL stick to what I beleive in, that is, Nothing. Beleiving in superior powers is just magic thinking. Only you control your life.

 

There's more too it than that. For the truly faithful, they have certain spiritual experiences that confirm to them personally that this is true. It is these experiences which keep religion alive and well. It sometimes saddens me that people will close themselves off to this because it sounds wierd or hokey.

But how do you explain the comfort that they feel from it? That is not , but a personal reality for them.

And you bitch about Religious people trying to tell you how to live your life and waht you shouldn't be doing. Yet you want to tell me how to live my life and what I should not do? You call yourself an Aetheist, I apply the term Hypocrite...

You preach hatred of something very close to our core being, how do you expect us to react? This is nothing compared to what you'd get compared to other such core things. Try spreading White supremesist at an NAACP convention and see if they nail you to the cross before you burn it...

The moral statements you have made are repulsive to me. The works you trash talk about love to our fellow humans, and a fraternal or sororal bond with all our fellow humans. You bash teachings of integrity and peace. Not only do I agree with these teachings, I reject the hatred that you seem to spew forth.

 

Religion is not a plague, it is simply a human way of rationalizing that which we do not yet understand. The true plague of which you speak is lack of knowledge, which necessitates something to fill the void. Religion has done a damn good job for thousands of years, and will continue to do the job until it is unnecessary (though deeply-held beliefs are hard to break, so it may last longer or even persevere altogether).

But just because you have no need for the consolation offered by religion does not mean you can ridicule (or outright attack) those who do. Just as they have no right to ridicule you for your lack of imagination and faith, not to mention your small-mindedness about others' beliefs. There are two sides to every coin, my friends.

Now both of you get civil before the mods notice.

 

He isn't telling you how to live, he is saying that a part of the way you live shouldn't have ever existed. By saying that religion is a plague and should be removed, he is not telling you to do something.


And a question in general: does the bible tell you that gay people are bad? I (never read the bible) have heard they had...

But if so, then those works of love toward fellow humans also teach hate towards certain humans.

I'm not completely sure about my previous statement, because i have never read the bible, but I'm pretty sure it implies, if not says, that homosexual people are evil.

 

while i respect the opinions of athiests, their arguement for their view is somewhat lacking, if not arrogant, in my opinion.

Most athiests would say that they do not believe in god, or that human beings have souls. Why? Because there is no proof. Well, let me ask you this, what proof do you have that these things don't exist? I will be willing to bet that most athiests have no proof that god/souls/whatever else don't exist.

Also, something that really bothers me is when people say that god or whatever doesn't exist, because science says it doesn't. They will regard sciences as the truth. What is wrong with this type of thought is that science itself doesn't presume that it knows everything, it is constantly trying to learn more. Even more so, people who study science will soon realize that the more they know, the less they know, and the more questions they have. What is more, science and religion are not at all contradictary to one another. Science tells us that at the deepest subatomic level all matter is the same (i.e. protons/neutrons/elections). A.k.a. the oneness of everything that eastern religion has been talking about for thousands of years. And also how science tells us that most of what we see isn't actually there (its all just energy/electrons). aka. the eastern concept of maya (illusion) as well.
". I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
-Albert Einstein.

And another thing about the existance of "souls", for lack of a better term. The modern trend is to view the brain as the center of awareness and/or personality, and that everything that every thought/emotion we experience can be traced to some chemical reaction in the brain. Scientists have been able to electrically stimulate specific parts of the brain to produce the physiological manifestations of many human emotions. This, however, reveals the brain to be nothing more than a sophisticated switchboard capable of being activated by a variety of external sources, and perhaps even by one's own "soul", with its own energy output. What is more, it is a well-documented fact that human beings can be aware outside of their body, as evidenced by out of body experiences/near-death experiences/astral projection. Although psychologists might think that these experiences are just self-protective hallucanations of the mind, it is not that simple. While experiencing these things, many people are able to accurately view their body from an external perspective, or even bring back information about another location that they would have had no prior way of knowing. They contain their self-awareness/personal identity even though their bodies are unconscience. What is more, anyone can learn to do this, theres tons of info about it online. Once you do it, you will know withought a doubt. The proof is out there waiting to be found.

So, I hope that this post has been enough to perhaps get some of you to guys question this odd notion known as "athiesm" (the mentality that you think there is no such thing as god/souls/afterlife, just because you have not seen proof), and reality (from your point of reference). Just because something hasn't been proven (to you) doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Did the "law of gravity" exist before it was "proven"? Was the earth flat before it was "proven" to be round? The one thing that I will believe in before before all else is the value of personal experience for yourself of anything that is god/divine/infinite, not what other people tell you to believe. That is why i would not necessarily recomend religion, but, IMO, to emrace atheism is much worse. At the very least, i hope some of you athiests out there will consider agnosticism after thinking about these things.

Ok, thats all
-PT

 

I would like to ask you something.

Suppose you're right. That religion, God, and faith are all superstitious bosh, that their unexistences are true. But people, as it were, are generally part of a herd. They continue to take religion, scientific and historical proof to the contrary, as it is because it offers some meaning to their lives. The rest, however, who are atheists, realize some higher, scientific, perhaps philosophical truth - there is no God.

Would that mean that you should impose a new order, or, say, destroy religion - turn churches into schools, turn Bibles into cardboard boxes, and so on? For you are right, and should the thousands who are right guide and shepherd the thousands of millions who are blind and wrong? Should these thousands who are right take away the option of choosing religion, faith, and, yes, superstition and magic, and instead present a single, monolithic idea of atheism and science? And if the majority of millions continue, as it were, to shelter their religious beliefs and faith, holding small churches and questioning this new age of atheism, stubbornly clinging onto their old ways, would you have to present mystery and authority as the option? Would you have to tell them that it is not the free will, not the love of the single person that matters, but that one obeys the mystery and authority of atheism, that the thousands who are right may continue unhindered guiding the masses?

Okay, that was long. If it sounds familiar, it's because I didn't just make that up. It's from the parable of the Grand Inquisitor - a story that has helped me understand the idea of belief and choice quite well.

 

Hm -- this sounds a touch shallow. There appears to be no personal bashing in this thread, and you're mighty quick to label those attempting to shed light on a different perspective as a "religious fanatic." Surely you knew you'd get a wide range of opinions when you opened up this thread.

This is simply untrue. As a present-day example, it's not hard to see that charitable motives flourish through religious organizations. If you can't see this, then you're choosing not to.

 

While I pretty much agree with the 'religion is unnecessary and harmful' thing - you guys do sound pretty damn fanatical ranting and pointing your finger...

Not that fanaticism is necessarily a bad thing (just usually...) - but in your case it might just be a bit hypocritical.

 

Yes, but where did those atoms come from? What made them move?

 

True. This is a case of religion being used to help people. Flip the coin, and you've got religion being used to kill (jihad, crusade, inquisition, whatever you want to call them and whichever trappings you give them, they're all the same). You can't say that "religion makes the world better" or "religion is making the world worse", because (unfortunately) fanaticism is not an easy thing to discard or get rid of.

That's the typical trap people who get excited about science fall in. Every time we think we've got an answer to one question, we're left with 10 new unanswered questions. It's easy to turn science into a religion, but then you find yourself in the same situation again: you cannot explain (to quote Douglas Adams) Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I do not consider myself an atheist. At one point I did, got quite agressive, and directed this against religious people. A few years ago I would have flamed someone religious (nothing personal chev ) and probably would have got banned for it. I used to idolize science as the solution to everything. Then I got into science, and realized it wasn't the New God some people want it to be. I'd call myself agnostic now: I don't know if there's a God, an Answer, or whatever, and for the moment I don't care (or, more accurately, I'm trying not to care). I want to enjoy life and my research. I've got no morals, but I do have a strong sense of ethics (which is completely arbitrary without a religion backing it up, but I don't care, and neither do people around me anyway). I'm not religious, but I think I'm spiritual. That's enough for me.

 

I for one don't wish to force any particular idea on someone. Also I don't wish to get other people's ideas shoved down my throat. I wish to keep discussion civil, because if we who don't believe start ramming our ideas into the heads of those who do believe, we're doing the very same thing we dislike about organized religion. Much like Oaz said.

I'd like to make the seemingly small notion that I think there's a big difference between a personal faith and organized religion. If it gives you peace of mind to think there's a higher power out there, nothing wrong with that. As long as you don't force your own view on other people.

Organized religions often have a strict set of rules based on old books written by men. These I don't agree with. What some Mid Eastern pilgrim thousands of years ago saw fit to include in their lawbooks, doesn't need to be implemented today. The Bible for instance, the Books of Moses in the Old Testament to be specific, includes a vast amount of "purity rules" about food and sexual issues, that have no relevance whatsoever today.

Many faiths involve restraining yourself from pleasure. Apparently the idea is that if you punish yourself enough in *this* life, the next one will be great. Another thing that makes no sense to me. Throughout the world religions have had a devastating effect on people's sexuality, especially women's. That it's somehow dirty and wrong to feel desire and pleasure. Maybe the Bible, for instance, wasn't as harsh as that in its original wording, but that sure is how it's been implemented.

A common argument made by religious people is that without religion there would be no morals. I find that incredibly wrong. I don't need a holy man telling me not kill people. I have a conscience, and I don't need people telling me it's there because a god planted it there. In a serious relationship I wouldn't sleep around, but not because a religion forbids it - rather out of love, loyalty and respect for that person. I don't need *religion* to be able to treat people around me with fairness and dignity.

On science as a new religion: some people indeed "believe" in science as a neo-religion. But something that religious people forget (and some non-religious too) is that science is an ongoing process. The idea is not "bam, here it is. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. The be-all-end-all of all that can ever be known." Science is about proving things conclusively: A happens because of B, now let's investigate B. Science accepts that there's plenty of things we don't, at least not yet, know.

Yet, I find no reason to believe something's there until it's proven. Also I've no reason to passionately un-believe and outright refuse the possibility. But it makes no sense to me to base my ethics and views and indeed my very existence on a "maybe."

That's pretty much what I tried to say. The way I put it is from philosophy books: a chain conclusion that attempts to justify itself by referring to itself, doesn't make sense. That's why "holy books" in general don't make sense to me - their supposed holiness can not be proven, and hence the holiness is all in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. Subjective. Not based on facts, but a gut feel. Like religion in general.

Rallymama, if only more people thought like that, I wouldn't mind at all. The thing is, the most well-known and widely spread holy books paint a much more harsh picture. The Bible plainly states that anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus, goes to hell. Many religions, sadly, *are* very concerned with following their strict format. And most religions' ideas of those formats conflict rather strongly. That's why I posed the question of how you're supposed to tell which faith to follow.

I agree that some religions are harmless. I believe a peaceful, personal faith of some kind can be beneficial at least to a person's own peace of mind. (On a side note, I myself don't have one.) But *organized* religions have caused great harm and will probably continue to do so. Hence I believe the world would be a better place without them. Yet this does not mean I wish to stomp them out of existence.

 

I am *not* bitching believers out there. Beleive in what you want, as long as you don't preach it to me.

Some of you see my views as extreme, and you're welcome to think so. I do *not* believe in the existance of a god, whatever it is, and I don't believe that religion has made the world a better place. What you choose to believe in is your own damn choice. But I prefer to be the master of my own life rather than being the puppet of some "holy force".

 

@TNO: I, too, prefer to be the master of my own life. Believe it or not, some people have found it possible to believe in God without becoming a puppet.