atheists only

[canisay182]

first of all, before i write this, I just wanted to say that this post is not meant to offened people who belive in god. some people are easily offended about things like religion, which is why i wrote atheists only. i'm not here to offend people. now that thats done..... doesnt it annoy you that people say atheists dont believe in anything? its not that i deny the existence of any type of spiritual things, i just dont buy the whole god thing. also, people act like im some immoral evil human being because im an atheist. WHAT is their problem? my idiot dad calls this my "phase of stupidity". he says im too young (im 14) to decide what i belive in, yet if i believed in god he would never say that. i might as well call this his "phase of hipocracy". my parents wont even allow me to tell people im an atheist. its not like i walk up to people and say "hi. my name is Lexi. im an atheist. lets talk about religion." I only talk about it when someone else brings it up. why are people so narrow minded? i dont go around trying to convert people to atheism, saying its the only true religion. at least i can accept that people beleive what they believe and that they have a right to their own opinon.

[Reflection]

bluheart said:

its not that i deny the existence of any type of spiritual things, i just dont buy the whole god thing.

I just don't understand how spiritual things can exist without God? Maybe I just don't understand what exactly you mean by "spiritual."

I used to be an atheist when I was younger, too. Everyone questions God at some point, so maybe that's why your dad thinks it's a phase. It could last for a long time, or it might not.

[sushiboat]

bluheart, I am also an atheist. Around the time I was finishing high school, I began thinking that religious authorities were saying things that they didn't know. In the next couple of years, I adopted a scientific perspective, and gods just weren't a necessary part of that picture.

I didn't choose what I believe. I just thought about the subject and came to a conclusion. It has been over 15 years since I first started questioning religion, and I have only become more convinced that I am correct.

As a shy person, I miss out on the social network that religion can give you. I know people who have moved across the country, checked in at a church in their new area, and become instantly plugged in to a source of friends and activities. It's lonely being an atheist. However, I can't pretend to believe what I don't, and I can't choose to believe otherwise, even if there are tangible benefits.

[Alecto]

Since I was 12 I started struggling with my religion also. At this point I consider myself a pagan. Though no one knows about it, as I am afraid they would freak out on me. Even though my family isn't very religious

[CaryGrant]

Not to put it too strongly, but I regard organized religion as one of the greatest evils ever imposed upon humankind, with G/god running a close second. About spirituality, which is not the same as religion or G/god...I've decided it really makes no difference whether or not there is or is not a god. It is impossible to prove, though easy to ascribe anything we don't understand to a "higher power." Some people draw a great deal of comfort from this; I don't see the point.

Many people think life would have no meaning if there was no god; I think that's a rather sad way to avoid providing meaning for your own life. However, most believers feel very threatened by those who don't, because the latter is a more self-confident position. Hence the need for the former to try and "convert," or, failing that, kill everyone else.

I think that if the world is going to come to an end, it will be at the hands of either religious fanatics or eco-terrorists, which is just another version of god/religion, anyway. Gandhi had it right when he said that Truth is God. If you can't handle truth, get out of my church.

[This is the Rants section, right?]

[Jarous]

bluheart said:

doesnt it annoy you that people say atheists dont believe in anything?

No. Shouldn't a man be able to give reasons why he believes something? I don't like the idea of believing something just because there's no evidence to the contrary. I do not see any tangible evidence of God's existence.

I can see why people (your father, for example) react like this. Man is a ... coward - he needs someone or something to love him, to look after him etc. Therefore, he did create God. And he does get scared when there appears someone to challenge his little mind construct and point out the (for some) obvious shortcomings of religion.

People are strange. When they try something and it doesn't work as expected they try even harder. Should they receive the same results, they won't warn others to avoid the same mistake. Instead, they'll go around telling everyone "You see this ... it's a wonderful thing, give it a try..." They just hate to stay on a sinking ship alone.

When you don't believe in what they say, they can't rationally persuade you and the only thing they are able to do is accuse you of stupidity, immorality etc.
Nonsense ... history is full of inhumanities and atrocities commited in the name of God and stories of honor and justice of the so called 'unbelievers.'

[Jarous]

CaryGrant said:

Many people think life would have no meaning if there was no god

And many more believe life has no sense no matter what. I think, Cary, that this might be a positive 'side-effect' of religion. From a pragmatic point of view - if it gives a raison d'etre to the masses then it's a good thing.
There's a big 'but,' though. Some people are quite willing to throw away their life in an attempt to secure an afterlife in paradise. I see one of the greatest evils ever imposed upon mankind in a form of Heaven and Hell.

[Alecto]

This kind of reminds me of Pascal's Wager.

He basically came up with the theory that: If your a Christian and there is a God you'll go to heaven, but if there isn't then you just die. How ever if you're an Athiest and there is a God you'll go to hell, if there isn't you'll just die. So its best to be a Christian just to be on the safe side.

I'm not good at explaining it

You may want to check out twhat this guy says about it

www.wiccan-refuge.com/pascal.html

[Jarous]

This is so unjust ... I don't know much about this, but let's suppose the above is true and suppose there is God. Why in the world would he send a calculative man into Heaven just because he restrained himself for a while (and only to be able to indulge for all eternity after that) and on the other hand a virtuous atheist into Hell to endure pain eternal - by the way, does anyone deserve that? I do not think so.

[Alecto]

Jarous said:

and on the other hand a virtuous atheist into Hell to endure pain eternal - by the way, does anyone deserve that? I do not think so.

I agree it isn't fair. The denomination of Christianity I formerly belonged to (well actually I'm still considered a member is the 7th Day Adventist)

Basically, Adventists believe that when a person goes to Hell the will not burn for eternity but will burn depending upon the level of there sins. For example: a guy like Hitler would burn a lot longer than a bank robber.
It gets more complicated than that though, and my notes are at home. But Adventists don't have the same belief in hell as most Christians do.

[Nicole]

bluheart:

Wow, I don't even know how to begin to respond to your post. Religion is what has fascinated and entranced me (to the point of obsession) since I was about your age. That was when I read Bertrand Russell's Why I'm Not a Christian and became an atheist. (I was raised Catholic and being an inquisitive, questioning type of person, I was already having doubts about the faith I was raised with.) My parents were upset, too - I remember getting into many arguments with them. I even remember being grounded because I refused to receive Communion! (I didn't think it was right to make a mockery of the sacrament when I didn't believe.)

God didn't make sense to me rationally OR ethically. I found it supremely immoral to believe in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God that could allow such injustice and misery to happen in the world. (And I didn't buy any of the "free will" explanations that were thrown at me, either.)

Now, at 26, my beliefs have changed considerably. I'm still an atheist. I don't believe in that celestial Santa Claus in the sky that rewards good and punishes evil. I think it's ridiculous, and I don't think I could ever hold such a belief. However, to call myself an "atheist" is way too limiting of a category. I also consider myself somewhat Catholic, somewhat Buddhist, somewhat Hindu, somewhat Muslim, somewhat Daoist, somewhat agnostic, etc., etc., etc. Reality is too large and inexplicable to shove into our stuffy confining categories.

Religion still dominates my life - I'm currently getting my Master's degree in Religious Studies actually (my BA is in English, though). I intend to get my PhD in Religion, too, and eventually become a professor. (People are always surprised to hear that I'm basically an atheist.)

Here's the thing, though - rationality and science can't fully explain the world, either. They can explain its bits and pieces, yes, and how they work together, but they can't explain IT. Why does anything exist at all? If you're not surprised and baffled by the mere fact of existence, then you're somebody that's probably going to be satisfied with the "rational" explanation of the world. Personally, I've never been satisfied with any explanation. No explanation is ever big enough. I just posted this in another social anxiety forum, so apologies if I'm repeating myself to anybody. Anyway, here's a quote from my favorite writer on religion, Alan Watts. (I highly recommend his books to you. You might want to start with The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are or The Wisdom of Insecurity. He was a Christian minister, but most of his writings are on Eastern philosophies. If I believed in reincarnation, I would suspect that I was him re-incarnated. I've never encountered anyone that thinks so much like me.) At any rate, here's the quote:

"It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd--uncanny and highly improbable. G. K. Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at a gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't. This feeling of universal oddity includes a basic and intense wondering about the sense of things. Why, of all possible worlds, this colossal and apparently unnecessary multitude of galaxies in a mysteriously curved space-time continuum, these myriads of differing tube-species playing frantic games of one-upmanship, these numberless ways of "doing it" from the elegant architecture of the snow crystal or the diatom to the startling magnificence of the lyrebird or the peacock?"

-- from The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

It is this feeling that inspires religion, I think. Religion always starts as divine and inspired nonsense, and only later do the dogmatists and legalists turn it into something ridiculous and silly by trying to rationalize the irrational.

When I stopped trying to see it in that dogmatic, literal way, religion made much more sense to me. It is the stuff of myth and dreams and poetry, not rationality. I can understand lighting candles and praying to the Virgin Mary just as I can understand prostrating yourself before Shiva or Allah. Or meditating or even using psychoactive drugs (like some indigenous tribes in Africa and the Americas). It's all an attempt to connect with that force out there, the force that makes the molecules move and the galaxies dance, that unexplainable and indefinable IT. It's when we try to rationalize and define it that it loses its magic and sounds merely silly. (Like the fundamentalist, literalist Christians.)

I think our lives have been stripped of so much magic and beauty and we need it back. Sometimes nonsense is a good thing. Sometimes it even makes its own kind of sense. (God, I'm paraphrasing Charles Manson.) Because really, nothing makes sense. Does it make sense that we're here? Does existence make "sense?" Not to me, it doesn't - not a damn bit. There may as well have just been nothing. So I think nonsense and sense are equally valid methods for explaining why we find ourselves here, in this strange and unlikely universe. No one really knows.

By the way, if you've never read the Bible, you might find the book of Ecclesiastes interesting. (It's my favorite.) It basically says life is meaningless, no one knows what it's for, and we may as well live it up while we can. (They never teach that one in Church.)

At any rate, I'm terribly sorry for the overly long post but this is my passion. ;D Have fun on your search! And read Alan Watts!

- Nicole

[sushiboat]

I think that there must be a disproportionate number of atheists online. We seem to be everywhere on the Internet, but few and far between face-to-face.

Why I am Not A Christian is a great book. I went on to read some other popular works by Russell, and he is still my favorite philosopher. The essays "Why I Am Not A Christian" and "A Free Man's Worship" are available online.

bluheart, at least you know you aren't alone in the world.

[CaryGrant]

Nicole - I was briefly in a MA of Religious Studies program, something my mother found vastly amusing because I'd always been an atheist. Little did she know...as a professor said on the first day, Religious Studies is for those who do not believe in God.

I agree that science cannot explain everything, that nothing explains why the world. Or, as my high school science teacher once said, science can explain many things, but it cannot explain Why a duck?

None of this means that life is meaningless, however. I think the worst thing religion - or worship of anything - has done is rob people of the realisation that we are responsible for creating our own meaning in life, within certain ethical boundaries.

I'll have to read Russell; I want to write a book called (working title) Searching for God, in which people seek meaning in life through various conventional means and come to the conclusion I stated above: we must create our own.

[Alecto]

I find it pretty strange that I know tons of people online who are Atheist or Nonchristians, yet in my personal life everyone I know is a Christian.

[Jarous]

This is strange ... cultural differences probably - our society is largely atheistic - I know only two Christians. Religion (I mean official - attending masses, confessions etc.) is considered for the 50+. The younger never even go to church.