Why I'm an Atheist

[Tubby]

It seems to me that religious folks take the easy way out of explaning 'life, the universe, and everything' by putting it all down to some sort of supernatural mystery. I guess that's okay if it makes them happy. Others, like myself, tend to think of religion as an easy way out of addressing some basic and fundamental questions. With regard to god and religion, I'm still asking the same sorts of questions that I remember asking my parents (staunch catholics) when I was maybe ten years old:

Why does god let babies die? Why does god cause floods, earthquakes, famine? Why does god let people get cancer; get bashed, robbed, and murdered? Why does god allow car accidents, tornados, disease, mental illness and suicide? Why did he allow the holocaust, the crusades, the inquisition?

And so on...

No priest or other religious person has ever been able to answer any of these very simple questions beyond saying something like "us mere humans can never hope to understand god's wonderful plan".

Wonderful plan. LMFAO

I was raised a catholic, and was taught throughout my school years that god was a 'loving father' who protected his children. Well, any father who 'protected' his children like that today would be serving a helluva long stretch in prison with no chance of parole. Even if this god did exist, why would you want to worship such a monstrosity? Personally, I think you'd get more joy out of worshiping Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, or Mao Zedong.


Tubby

[Acer]

To me it sounds like you're the one who's taking 'the easy way out', whatever that's supposed to mean. Most religious people have the same questions all their lives, maybe they just tend to listen and hold on to their gut feeling, even if it doesn't make much sense. And there are many religious people who are also open to scientific research. It doesn't have to be so black and white. What is so stupid about just hoping that there is some higher power, and maybe even some form of afterlife or reincarnation? I really hope that there is but that doesn't make me any better or happier, or more at ease. It's nothing more than hope and desire.

Is keeping your faith after a tragedy in your life taking the easy way out? More like the other way around, most people ditch their faith and start to ridicule what they have been taught. They have been disappointed and turn away from it. The world of Science doesn't make you feel bad if you fuck something up in your life, but it's also a rather depressing world. A world where spectacular things just happen and evolve and where dead is dead. And what do all these fascinating discoveries mean to us personally? Why would I care about the earth and the next ten generations to come, or even our entire human race? If there is no God then give me one good reason why we even need to think about that. Sure we worry about our children and grand children, but the rest is part of the unknown future. Very interesting, especially since none of us will be there to witness any of it.

You're saying that just because there doesn't seem to be any divine intervention there can't be something more to life? I mean if there would be, where would God's intervention stop? We wouldn't be able to live our own lives with a pro-active God around. What if this God somehow created a completely self supporting world, with all the natural laws, the highs and lows, the good and bad? I don't know. Maybe it isn't part of an original plan that human diseases have developed due to all kinds of human influences. Maybe it's not part of a plan that accidents happen. Ever watch Aircrash Investigation on NGC? Accidents don't just happen they are series of events and mostly due to human failure one way or the other. Natural disasters are a different story of course but I doubt that a God would have anything to do with that, the earth is still a savage place in the universe. We just happen to be there in the best possible time frame. Humans are probably the only species the natural world could do very well without and that's probably part of the reason why we don't know our role and place and why we have all these questions. But (trying to be) religious or not, we're all in the same boat.

[Tubby]

Acer, your whole argument revolves around "hoping" and "wishing" for something better. Well, every Saturday I hope and wish to win the lottery.... Once again, I'm still not getting any actual answers to the basic questions I asked in my first post - just a whole lot of theological psychobabble. That's why I say you're taking the easy way out. All your "hoping" and "wishing" doesn't do fuck all for people who are suffering at the hands of your 'wonderful god' today.

Acer, try this: Go to the pediatric ward at your local hospital and explain to the kids dying of cancer there what you just explained to me. I'm sure they'll be overjoyed to hear it. I'm sure it will really give them a sound understanding of why your loving god singled them out to die a slow and painful death.

[Arm0r]

Acer, try this: Go to the pediatric ward at your local hospital and explain to the kids dying of cancer there what you just explained to me. I'm sure they'll be overjoyed to hear it. I'm sure it will really give them a sound understanding of why your loving god singled them out to die a slow and painful death.

Oh, so for there to be a god pain and suffering must be nil?   Forget the fact the bible is filled with trials and tribulations, oh no, the cancer patients are the ultimate proof of zero creator....pfft.

I'm not a christian or someone who puts to much faith in a "god" but your argument is moot, to have free will is to have suffering.  Find another argument.

[ToRcH]

Amen 

[Tubby]

ArmOr, I'm not saying that cancer etc. is "proof" of no creator. All I'm saying is why would you want to worship a god that allows such things to happen? To me, such a god is more worthy of hate and derision than it is of praise and glory.

If this wonderful god appeared to me tommorrow, I don't think I would be bowing down on my knees before him. I think I would be slapping him around the face and asking him how he could be so abhorrently cruel to the people he calls his 'children'.

As for free will, that's just another theological cop-out which religious people use to explain away the things they can't answer.

[Arm0r]

ArmOr, I'm not saying that cancer etc. is "proof" of no creator. All I'm saying is why would you want to worship a god that allows such things to happen? To me, such a god is more worthy of hate and derision than it is of praise and glory.

If this wonderful god appeared to me tommorrow, I don't think I would be bowing down on my knees before him. I think I would be slapping him around the face and asking him how he could be so abhorrently cruel to the people he calls his 'children'.

As for free will, that's just another theological cop-out which religious people use to explain away the things they can't answer.

  oh, so if there is a god and he appeared to you tomorrow you'd "be slapping him around"....that right there is enough to tell me you're already totally numb even to the conept of it, just another atheist with his, pardon the pun, "greater than thou" attitude about it.   

Anything anyone could cite in defence of their religion would be nothing more than a "cop-out" to you so why would you even post this thread in the first place?  In fact, you even stated in another thread:

Maybe we need another few thousand years of intellectual evolution and development before we can really begin to understand the concept.

You think we need another few thousand years of evolution before we even understand concept of things in our observeable universe yet seem to be able to explain away god, who if exists is worlds more complex, pretty easily.....like I said, get a new argument.

[soh]

Well, any father who 'protected' his children like that today would be serving a helluva long stretch in prison with no chance of parole.

You answered it yourself. God is in prison right now. Which is why all this is happening

[soh]

On a more serious note though, I was raised Catholic
I do understand why you ask these questions. I wish I had the answer to them. As of right now, I'm still waiting ...

[Acer]

your whole argument revolves around "hoping" and "wishing" for something better. ... Once again, I'm still not getting any actual answers to the basic questions I asked in my first post

You know -of course- that I don't have them. If I could answer all those old questions I would be world famous or be crucified. But I feel that we all have to figure these things out for ourselves, one explanation won't do it because we all look at the world from our own perspective. (I don't like to refer to the bible but even Jesus himself couldn't understand why his Father had left him to die in agony. If there is such a thing like a mind boggling paradise I'm sure it won't come easy and meet us halfway).

So, what do You hope and wish for? That people will find magical answers in the distant future (long after you've died) that will explain everything and make life perfect without emotion, sadness, pain and joy? And what would You tell a terminallly ill child that is too young to understand the world? Your truth? That his soul probably dies with his body, that he's a goner and that all hope is lost and he must die? That it is survival of the fittest and that his short life has been pretty much useless?
Or would you tell the child something comforting that maybe lifts his spirits, and maybe also your own so you can come to terms with the situation a little better. I don't understand why so called atheists object to giving people "false hope" in hard situations. Their take on life doesn't help much either and it certainly doesn't seem to improve their quality of life, if anything it makes them bitter and pessimistic. If our souls do not live on anyway then what does it matter if you tell a dying person that after his suffering his being will hopefully be absorbed by a hard but fair God to make his last time on earth more bearable.

[|iR|Focalor]

Being religious or atheist or agnostic is a personal choice. Each person makes up their own mind based on the evidence they've seen and there really isn't a way to prove the individual right or wrong in the choice they have made for themselves. So arguing about the existence of God is pretty futile.

But it sounds to me more like you take exception to the concept of God as described in the Holy Bible and not necessarily the concept of A god in general. Why does Yahweh/Allah have to be the only one true god that you consider to be a god? Maybe you're more religious than you think.

[quadz]

I don't understand why so called atheists object to giving people "false hope" in hard situations. Their take on life doesn't help much either and it certainly doesn't seem to improve their quality of life, if anything it makes them bitter and pessimistic. If our souls do not live on anyway then what does it matter if you tell a dying person that after his suffering his being will hopefully be absorbed by a hard but fair God to make his last time on earth more bearable.

I doubt you'll find a secular humanist who would begrudge someone comfort on their deathbed.

I'd disagree in general about the quality of life though, as I find it rather a relief to be free of the idea of being under constant surveilance by a supernatural dictator who can convict me of thought crime.

I think the objections you mention begin to occur when people's private religious beliefs begin to affect public policy--for example, the Catholic church preaching that condom use is a sin in AIDS afflicted sub-saharan Africa; or when somone tries to ban stem cell research on the basis that a clump of 150 cells has a "soul".

If religious beliefs were truly just a private form of comfort, I doubt there'd be any meaningful objections.


Regards,

[Arm0r]

If I had to opt for there being a god or not being a god I would definently want there to be one just for the idea of life beyond this one, I don't see how you add comfort by proving that after your micro second in time is over that the story ends.  I don't think it's necessarily god that people hope exists, it's the promise of what comes with it, after life...another chapter.

[Tubby]

I doubt you'll find a secular humanist who would begrudge someone comfort on their deathbed.

Exactly.

Most religious folks seem to assume that all athiests / humanists are heartless bastards with no sense of compassion or morality. Maybe it appears that way to religious people because atheists tend to view things as they are, not as we would hope and like them to be.

For example, an athiest will look at that dying child and accept that, yes, this child is dying because he isn't 'fit' enough (in the Darwinian sense) to continue living. Yes, he will go into the ground and that will be the end of him.

Just because we understand that and accept it doesn't mean we feel any less bad for that child. On the contrary, we probably feel worse because we haven't got the false hope of a 'god' to prop us (and the child) up.

As an athiest I HATE the way Darwinian evolution works: I think it's inexorably cruel and unfair, but my feelings don't really count, do they? Because that's just the way the real world works, unfortunately.

[Tubby]

But it sounds to me more like you take exception to the concept of God as described in the Holy Bible and not necessarily the concept of A god in general. Why does Yahweh/Allah have to be the only one true god that you consider to be a god? Maybe you're more religious than you think.

Foc, I don't consider there to be a 'one true god', full stop. I don't care what you call it / him / her.

I think god (Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Moloch, etc.) is a human invention designed by people to allay their fears of fallibility and mortality. An atheist is simply a person who understands and accepts this, and who sees and understands the world for what it really is without resorting to primitive, supernatural, and artificial belief systems.

Surely not that hard to understand???