Some Questions for the Atheists Here

I am no atheist either. But I have no problem with atheists.
I have always had a thought in my mind.....It's like the whole "God & his teachings" is a system and hope. It gives hope to people and keeps the world from facing anarchy.

When I was a child and still my mom says whether you are alone or not God is always watching you. So if you commit any crime don't think you can get away with it.

So that's my opinion.

 

There's lots of ideas but to keep it simple, I think atheism is a good thing.

If you look at Japan for example where most people are atheists, the crime rate is low.

Most people who commit violent crimes associate themselves with a God.

While atheism can potentially be flawed, there certainly are positives.

 

Raised Catholic, also ecumenical and Pentecostal and charismatic for my young adulthood. Still a believer up until about 4 years ago.

• What convinces you that there is no God?

I guess I am more of an igtheist than an atheist. This position emphasises that what people tell you about god(s) or heaven etc. is extremely vague. No one can explain or define "god" so how can anyone be compelled to believe in something the defies a definition? Timeless, what? No beginning, how? And so on. People live their whole lives believing they have a personal relationship with Jesus, but can then tell you almost nothing about him at all, which seems to indicate that the relationship wasn't personal but delusional.

People try to tell me that believe in heaven too, but where is heaven, what is the gravity like there, do you have a body there, how far away from your loved ones do you live? Even the simplest most banal details are impossible to express about this place, so I have to assume that people really know nothing about heaven - yet they are prepared to pledge their lives to this supremely vague retirement village in the sky.

I resisted evolution for so long. But the evidence to support evolution is immense - from whales having finger bones to human foetuses developing (and then reabsorbing) a pelt of hair. Evolutionary psychology has much more plausible reasons for belief in invisible agents (spirits, ghosts, gods) - one of which is "hyperactive agency detection", which assumes that those humans who best can imagine a conscious mind they cannot see will be better at anticipating threats, or will observe folk wisdom and not venture into the haunted part of the forest.

My life was full of very real, very powerful experiences of the supernatural, or so I thought. Turns out that everything that happened to me that I thought was spiritual, happens to lots of people in both religious and non-religious settings (I had just refused to look into this or acknowledge it). Shaking, laughter, falling over, fluttering eyelids, temporary paralysis (cataplexy), intense feelings, crying etc. All of these are things that occur in your actual body, not in your spirit. ​

• Do you read or listen to any atheistic authors or speakers? In what ways do they inspire you?

"TMM" on YouTube has a great channel I like, he is where I heard the term igtheist.
"Aron Ra" has great material for understanding evolution.​

• Do you think it's possible you'd ever start believing God?

This possibility could only occur if God could somehow make sense and it is highly unlikely that this would happen. Where is Jesus anyway - he said he was coming right back, is he golfing at Mar-a-Lago? In Scripture there are account of people who are given special insight, special visitation or special knowledge - just think of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus. Given that God has limitless power, and given that the salvation of the people who receive special attention is still valid - why doesn't God give everyone an undeniable experience? It is really absurd that He doesn't, if we're to believe that he as the most perfect form of love for them.

If God is perfect, then he is also the most perfect teacher that has ever existed - but would you believe a teacher whose lessons are so inferior that billions of people fail the test? Why didn't Jesus leave a written account - why did he allow decades to pass and tales to travel to second hand accounts? Why was God so bad at getting Israel to do what he wanted? A truly perfect teacher would give perfect lessons - and you know what - I would pay attention to a perfect lesson from a deity, but in all my years of Christian teaching I have never had this happen.​

• Out of all the religions in the world which one is the best?

The ones I don't know about because they have clearly left me alone.​

 

Religion is not rational, which is why you believe.
It transcends concepts, which are only relevant to the world.
Still it is thinkable, which is why we have threads like these.
It seems to resonate with a deep-seated need.

 

I agree with Buzz Nietzsche here, as an atheist who would probably be happier if he wasn't.

 

I am fully athiest as opposed to agnostic. This is something I have long contemplated but I have finally reached a personal conclusion on human existance and the purpose of life. This is what I personally believe however I continue to keep an open mind. There is no god, there is no afterlife, there are no supernatural intangible aspects in our lives, these are but ideas with no basis in reality. The idea that we face such a grim fate is quite difficult for many to accept, but actually beautiful in my eyes. The way we are brought into the world randomly and spontaneously for an extremely brief time is absolutely amazing. I am ecstatic to be able to experience it even if its only once and for a very short time. To me this is perfection. I wouldnt have it any other way. I accept my fate and would rather know the truth than live a life devoted to false hope. I accept, nay, look forward to life. There will be good times and bad, but its the way of life. I will see those dear to me perish, and witness the fervor of youth I now firmly grasp slowly fade. And when the time comes for me to die... I will look fondly on my life and feel great having lived. I will embrace the eternal darkness that will envelope me and not feel sorrow when my time has come. I wouldnt want it any other way. This is my destiny and I couldnt be happier or more mystified by the beauty of life and nature. Life is worth living, and these imperfections are what make the world perfect.

 

1. Nothing convinces me that there is no god, but nothing convinces me that there is. So I just made the rational decision, and decided that it was more likely that there is no god as his powers seem to defy the laws and history of the universe that we have discovered through science.
2. Not really an atheistic author/speaker, but Bill Nye the Science Guy. He is an amazing man that has inspired me to question anything and everything around me, including the indoctrination I had received as a child. Asides from that, I try to listen to as many atheistic speakers, as well as theistic speakers as well, to get an opinion from as many people as possible.
3. Yes, I would definitely believe in god in a heartbeat if any tangible evidence that he existed was presented to me. I would not however, worship him as most gods, by my morals, are kinda total dicks.
4. The fundamentals of most religion are bad, but modern Christianity seems to be the sanest religion around at the moment.

 

Whether or not one is truly a religious 'thinker' often comes down to their state of consciousness. Those more inclined to the existential, philosophical, aesthetic, poetic and moral spheres incline pragmatically towards religion. For them, belief, in all its forms, is central. It seems wired into their very nature, and in developing it, there is a sense of abundancy here.

For those that find themselves more on the scientific, rationalist plain, this state of 'reduced' consciousness lends them more to disbelief. For them, doubt is more central. Not surprisingly, disbelief is more doctrinaire these days.

When you do the 'archaeology' of beliefs, what sits at the bedrock is not reason but the will. Essentially you have the will to belief, and the will to doubt, as two fundamental stances faced in opposing directions... like the two-faced Roman god Janus.

 

Another thing that convinces me is that 100% of all minds known to human kind are embodied ... that is the mind has a body. Human minds only exist because our bodies process at a certain speed, if our minds were x15 faster - what we know about identity would just disintegrate.

Given that gods often have human like qualities - such as jealousy or vengefulness, they begin to look like human constructions. How does god have a mind... But not a body? How does god have jealousy but no neurons or guts with which to feel the flush and heat of jealousy.

I would go so far as to say that a mind without a body is akin to "a married batchelor" and disqualifies God due to logical inconsistency (but hard to find anyone that agrees with me on that).

 

@Surfing Poet
What do you believe or how do you feel your faith exists?
Would I be wrong to assume that your faith means you share something that is socially valued by other people that you interact with?

 

Interesting. This is usually an argument for the soul, which in turn becomes an argument for God...as the cause for the soul.

Atheists/ materialists usually say, 'the body has a mind'.

But of course, the natural use of language reflects the initial statement; I [the mind] have a mind.

Personally, I think I have a mind, and a body; that the mind is not my essence but something like a tool that I use with which to interface with the world... just like my body is.

 

Consider people with locked-in syndrome. They are paralysed. It sounds terrifying, doesn't it? Guess what... They don't feel terror because you need nerve connections down your spine and into your guts to have to part of 'your mind' activated.

This is also what scares me about AI when people assume the brain is the mind.... such a type of AI would also not feel terror (when it should feel terror at it's own power) unless we model in a spinal cord and guts too.

 

Yes, it is only with modern philosophy that mind came to be rigidly juxtaposed to body. It soon came to be known, detri-mentally, as the ghost in the machine, to the point where we lost sight of it altogether [and yet it is what creates our forms of knowledge]. Older more classical thought saw the soul as a kind of 'form' to the body... a metaphysical principle that energized and held the material together. In this way of thinking, everything has a 'form'. Indeed, it was from this principle that science sprung. The world of forms was the intelligible world... the unchanging world. It was a short step from there to argue there be an author to this intelligence.

It is interesting that in Christianity you have the resurrection of the body.

 

That's a good honest answer.

My (expert? j/k I'm only about to start my PhD) opinion is that our bodies prefer social knowledge more than natural knowledge.
For instance my niece can speak, she can sing, she can play, she can follow instructions, she watches TV, she knows how to interpret highly context sensitive behaviour patterns - but she can't even identify colours correctly. Humans learn about being human first and about reality second. Language comes first - long before balancing on one foot or counting to ten with any capacity to comprehend what numbers are.

It just makes sense - it is far more important to learn "similarity", "approximation" and "complementarity" than it is to learn engineering, chemistry, physics or math. Because it is impossible to learn all the important stuff by yourself, so you have to be included as a student and inducted into knowledge by others who have spend years gaining different types of expertise.

And religion is very much a pattern of similarity - similar songs, postures, ways of standing, ways of viewing group activity etc.
The one thing that religion doesn't teach you to question is whether your certainty is about being correctly like other people, or if it is because the actual things you believe are true and worth your continued attention. That all gets smoothed over until everything is faith and everything is dogmatically managed (with the unrepentant or the heretics pushed aside).

But every faith, every religion, every form of meditation, even things like "I'm gluten free" trade in massive amounts of certainty and awe - but that is because our bodies get to learn the thing that they are so desperate to learn "How can be more like them" how can I be recognised, included, shared with, taught the important lessons etc.

Evidence slips far away.