The atheist way of thinking

mr fog light

I direct this to the hardcore atheist those who believe in nothing supernatural during life or after life.As the title suggests im trying to get a view of the inner toughts of an atheist with rerguards to the question, "whats it all about?". I could just simply ask how did you come to that clonclusion? but in an attempt to be more specific as to what im looking for i've divided the question into 3 parts, with part 1 more being more of a pointer as to the knowledge i seek.

1. What happens when you die?

Probable atheist view:Outside the obivous,Nothing

It only takes me a few moments to get my head around the notion before i feel i have an understanding of it.
So you can take it that im ok with this part and i hope you attempt to give me some feedback on part 2 & 3

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

Say your thinking is "the big bang" im not not looking for a big bang explanation but more like....i read book A, this got me to a dicussion with friends which got me to book B then i tought about the whole thing for about a year and found that im an atheist....
If your thinking is along the lines of, its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.
Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Ghost Buster

mr fog light wrote: »

I direct this to the hardcore atheist those who believe in nothing supernatural during life or after life.As the title suggests im trying to get a view of the inner toughts of an atheist with rerguards to the question, "whats it all about?". I could just simply ask how did you come to that clonclusion? but in an attempt to be more specific as to what im looking for i've divided the question into 3 parts, with part 1 more being more of a pointer as to the knowledge i seek.

1. What happens when you die? I dont know and am prepered to wait and see rather than make something up or believe something most certainly made up.

Probable atheist view:Outside the obivous,Nothing

I don't share this view but it only takes me a few moments to get my head around the notion before i feel i have an understanding of it.
So you can take it that im ok with this part and i hope you attempt to give me some feedback on part 2 & 3

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?See above.

Say your thinking is "the big bang" im not not looking for a big bang explanation but more like....i read book A, this got me to a dicussion with friends which got me to book B then i tought about the whole thing for about a year and found that im an atheist....
If your thinking is along the lines of, its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them. Their brain and subsequently all other organs have stopped working.

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.
Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one :confused:

A joyful one. Im enjoying this life and living it well as Im fairly sure I wont get a second chance. Im free of hand me down baggage.

Dades

None of the questions you've asked have much bearing on why I'm an atheist, tbh.

But in brief:

(1) The same thing that happens the chicken I ate for dinner. My atoms will be recycled back into nature.

(2) I have no idea other than what seriously smart people like Stephen Hawking suggest to us, in very, very watered down form. I'm okay with not knowing, too.

(3) Our brains are our consciousness. This is a very easily demonstrated concept. Like a computer, remove or turn the power off to the brain and you are just left with a body. We have absolutely no reason to think there is anything else to our consciousness, but people are hung up on the idea that we are "special", rather the smarter mammals that are born, breed and die like every other mammal

Oh, and those conclusions are neither joyful, nor depressing. Just intellectually honest (to myself).

Ickle Magoo

Well, first of all I should say I didn't really come to any conclusion, I was about 4 or 5 when I told my family I didn't get the whole religion/god thing. I don't remember ever being a theist, I don't think I ever made a concious decision not to believe in anything - it was more a case of always having been unable to believe in these imagined beings and mythical assumptions.

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

We just die - the same way plants and animals and every other living thing does. Traumatic brain injuries that alter personalities would suggest to me that everything that makes us who we are is contained within those axons rather than a separate vessel such as a soul which is protected even from death.

mr fog light wrote: »

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

I don't know. I can't say that it wasn't a god that set in motion the conditions that existed prior to the big bang but, as above, automatically assuming it was isn't something I am able to do. Over millennia gods have been given credit for giving us heat, changing the seasons, giving good harvest, curing disease and bestowing good fortune - today when people push "god" back into one of the few gaps left in our knowledge then it reminds me of those people all those years ago.

mr fog light wrote: »

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

In order to be alive it must grow, reproduce and perform other basic biological functions. When those functions cease, the organism dies. I'm not sure why a supernatural anything requires evocation. Do you think plants have souls? Or bacterium? They are alive and yet there are no assumptions that those living things have some supernatural carrier of their personality.

mr fog light wrote: »

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.
Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

I was a pre-schooler, I don't think anyone had any real influence, I couldn't get my head around theism/deism then or now. My parents sent me to sunday school and when I said I didn't believe in a god they said I would have to go until I could formulate an argument for not going. I had a fantastic chat with my dad a few weeks later about none of it making sense and that was that. I don't know if it was joyful or depressing as I've never known anything else...I'm certainly happy not feeling I have to try to keep pushing that square peg into the round hole just because it makes me feel better or makes me feel important, or forces me to be good/nice/kind/etc.

Nemi

I'll give it a go, but I'm just giving quick answers so please excuse if I'm too abrupt; its absolutely not a dismissal, as I think your questions are useful.

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

As you surmise, I guess nothing. That said, many theists did not believe in an afterlife - including some of the Jews in Jesus time.

mr fog light wrote: »

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

I've really no idea, but I suppose I see no reason to assume a supernatural cause. Its actually not a point that exercises me greatly, and I would not say it was pivotal in making me disbelieve.

mr fog light wrote: »

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead?

Well, if we stick with animals, I'd say consciousness at some level. Is consciousness utterly mechanical? I suspect it may be, but I don't feel we really understand this. Or maybe its just me that doesn't understand. I have read Dennet's Understanding Consciousness and that other guy's book (Rose?) The Emperors New Mind, but I don't think either really cracked the question. Dennet's book has a lot of good information, though.

mr fog light wrote: »

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example

Not really. With me, I don't recall any road to Damascus Unrevelation. I think I just started realising that none of this stuff really reached me. I was a bit like Father Dougal, mildly astonished when I realised others actually did get something out of the Eucharist. So I sort of realised the words of all these prayers and so forth weren't meant to be just empty rhetoric. You were actually meant to relate to them in some way.

The others around me at the time were, in public at least, still asserting their belief. So I tended to get more of the 'so, who made the world, then' kind of stuff than anything else. In fairness, I think they likely thought I was just posing.

In terms of books, I remember Joseph Heller's 'God Knows' as sort of explaining to me how a devout believer might relate to a god. King David's line at the end, after him and God have stopped speaking,

"I want my God back, and they send me a woman."

is one that comes to my mind sometimes when I read something by someone who really believes.

Which is my very long way of saying that my disbelief was, very simply, grounded in my never feeling that any god was speaking to me. Since then, I've obviously read and had experiences that confirm that view. I'd say it was capped by my recent reading of "The Golden Bough", which I think finally helped me make sense of Christianity. But that's after a couple of decades of atheism. "The Golden Bough" did not inform my decision to stop practicing.

mr fog light wrote: »

Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Well, I think I was happy enough to leave Catholicism behind. It simply didn't fit. Whatever dissatisfactions I have in life are simply the product of my own decisions. But (which I feel you might be driving at) loss of 'faith' didn't especially provoke any change in my mental state, as I was mostly discovering that I'd no faith to begin with.

Zillah

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

No idea. As of yet the (lack of) evidence would suggest that I simple cease to be.

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

No idea.

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

Living creatures are just a manifestation of complex replicating molecules. Some are incredibly complex, like say sheep, while others are so simple that there are arguments as to whether they should be considered life at all (viruses). When a lifeform dies, the complex chemical reaction that they were is no longer taking place.

Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Satisfaction, I suppose. Because until then I had been dealing with the confusing and nonsensical supernatural assertions of priests and my parents. The more I started thinking that they were talking shite the more comfortable I was, I no longer had to try and make those ridiculous magical stories make sense. They just didn't make sense, because they were made up.

strobe

Ok, I'm in.

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

Probable atheist view:Outside the obivous,Nothing

Yeah, I'd go along with that. Your heart stops working, your liver stops working and your brain (the organ that produces your consciousness) stops working.

mr fog light wrote: »

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

Say your thinking is "the big bang" im not not looking for a big bang explanation but more like....i read book A, this got me to a dicussion with friends which got me to book B then i tought about the whole thing for about a year and found that im an atheist....
If your thinking is along the lines of, its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

Currently, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to hazard a guess, I'd put my money on something along the lines of the below post. But I don't know.
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=67025163&postcount=184

How did I come to the conclusion that there is nothing supernatural? Well if there was something supernatural we should expect to see some evidence of it somewhere. We don't. Not one single concrete example of a supernatural occurrence in the entire history of mankind. Nothing. So I don't believe in the supernatural for the same reason I don't believe there is a 2000 foot octopus in the Liffey. There is simply nothing whatsoever to suggest there is.

mr fog light wrote: »

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.
Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Wiki has this to say about life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

"Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (biology) from those that do not,[1][2] either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate.[3]
In biology, the science of living organisms, life is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter.[4] Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations. More complex living organisms can communicate through various means.[1][5] A diverse array of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and the properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information."

I can't really fault the description.

I wasn't influenced by any specific people. No names spring to mind but I read a lot. I certainly would never read something that one person has said and then just think "i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says." I'd need something solid to back up what the person had said.

I wouldn't say the realisation that there is no supernatural was depressing or joyful, it was neutral if anything. Like finding out the speed of light or the capital city of Venezuela. Just another fact to throw on the pile. But specifically not having to live by the rules layed down by the bible has lead to many many joyful experiences. My life would certainly be less fun if I thought there was an invisible space goblin secretly watching me have sex. Talk about cramping your style.

mr fog light

Thanks to all who have replied so far i appreciate it,:) i had been reading the A&A post and treads over the last few days and believe it or not, finding it hard to get a grasp worldly views of an atheist.I've to be honest and say after reading the post so far, the idea i had in my mind of an atheist was fairly inaccurate!!.( the change has been for the better)
That said, some of the posts i felt the urge to retort but i've no douth a debate would ensue, an seeing as thread is going to my liking i'll leave it be. Maybe later.;)

Turtwig

mr fog light wrote: »

I direct this to the hardcore atheist those who believe in nothing supernatural during life or after life.

Rename this thread "Materialistic Thinking" thank you. There are many atheist out there who believe in the supernatural. Being an atheist has nothing else to do with a person than their rejection of belief in God.

Right now to your questions.

1. What happens when you die?

The same thing that happens to windows when you switch off the computer and wipe the hard drive completely clean.

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

Short answer I don't know and I am humble enough to admit instead of lumping an explanation in there because I need to have an answer; I don't. Maybe somethings simply have no answer.

If your thinking is along the lines of, its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle allows something to come out of nothing as long as the size and time scale is tiny. If the universe was really a tiny clump then it's possible that quantum fluctuations were present on a cosmic scale. I'm not saying this is case, I'm saying it might be the case and as I can postulate a natural testable hypothesis I don't see really why I should invoke a supernatural one that leaves more questions than answers.

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

"Life" is merely a subjective term. Both living and non living things contain the same chemicals/atoms etc. It's just we define one thing as living and the other as non living. Something dead is something we define as a living that is now giving all the characteristics of the non living thing.

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.
Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

I can't quite pinpoint a book I read or person. I think it was more a gradual process. As for the realisation, well, it comes as a moment that makes you feel very very humble inside, and ultimately, better than I ever was. The release you get from being free from religion is exhilarating.

strobe

mr fog light wrote: »

Thanks to all who have replied so far i appreciate it,:) i had been reading the A&A post and treads over the last few days and believe it or not, finding it hard to get a grasp worldly views of an atheist.I've to be honest and say after reading the post so far, the idea i had in my mind of an atheist was fairly inaccurate!!.( the change has been for the better)
That said, some of the posts i felt the urge to retort but i've no douth a debate would ensue, an seeing as thread is going to my liking i'll leave it be. Maybe later.;)

Do you mind if I ask what the idea you had in your mind of an atheist was Fog? And why you now think it was inaccurate?

Ush1

The answers I would have given have already been said so I'll just give the answer alot of theists want to hear;

1. You rot, cold and muddy, souless. Other atheists may eat parts of the body as part of our rituals.

2.No idea, therefore I have no morals and will kill people who I don't like in a similar manner to Mao and Pol Pot. Legends they were.

3.Yummy essential organs make something alive, which we like to eat.

Pushtrak

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

People party? Then nothing.

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

How about instead of getting us lay people on forums to explain it, you look into the stuff first hand? I'd recommend the book by Simon Singh, Big Bang or one by Stephen Hawking. Though, honestly, I don't need to be convinced by the big bang information I have (which isn't all that much) to find the god concept, well to put it lightly, dubious.

its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

If the belief systems posited an impersonal god, then I wouldn't really have as much confidence in refuting it as I do. A personal, caring god? No way I can buy into that nonsense, and I don't understand how anyone can.

Chrisitanity (unifying all the "I'm right" camps into one banner) is the largest religion I believe with about a third of the population. So, supposing them as right, and by extension there is a hell. So, 2/3 of the current population has gone to hell?

There was a hell of a long time homo sapiens have been around with no knowledge of Yahweh. Why should this be so? And what of the progenitors to homo sapien who are fairly close to us in evolutionary terms? Were they made in an almost god image? And their progenitors? Almost almost god like?

There were all manner of notions accepted, the earth being flat, being the centre of the universe. Humanity has a very big ego, really. When we are naught but an insignificant planet in one of who knows how many galaxies.

There is a point made about how perfect the planet is for life. Considering how many planets there are, surely some would be capable of supporting life just by sheer chance. A big song and dance is made about how much of the planet is water. Yeah, mostly undrinkable salt water. Intelligently designed, yeah right.

Religion is nothing but useful to those who wish to exploit it for power, and a sad exercise in back peddling for the rest. Oh, something is literal until it is utterly debunked, then it is metaphor.

Oh, I suppose the planet wasn't all that well designed for the over 90% of animal life that is now extinct. Are we to presume god had some manner of plan that this was good?

There are probably other stuff floating away in my head that just aren't coming to me at the moment. I'm sure the point is made well enough. Religion is the perfect answer for those who don't want the right answer, or minimum effort, maximum feel good.

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead?

Were you asleep during biology class?

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.

Maybe on first reading it. It stays on my mind though, and think it through. The real test is when you talk about it to someone who knows their stuff the other way and if you can defend the position and still agree.

Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Well, that's very abstract. You may have some idea in your head, and have an understanding of how you'd react to some given circumstance. To me, it's as abstract as "You hear news. Are you happy or sad?" In short, I don't know. Depends on what the realisation/conclusion is. And ultimately, the instantaneous reaction is of far lesser importance than the long term of what is derived.

Edit: If the conclusion you are referring to is about veering away from religion and going to atheism, then there wasn't one for me. I'd always be the one asking "So, this is really supposed to have happened?" and being bewildered that people believed it. Went through a time of being pure agnostic "No way one can know for sure" and not looking into it. Lazy approach, so I looked into religions, but after a time, I realised I'd get nothing out of it without actually starting out with a "There is a god" line of thought. So, I looked into answers the other way.

mr fog light

QUOTE=strobe;67974188]Do you mind if I ask what the idea you had in your mind of an atheist was Fog? And why you now think it was inaccurate?[/QUOTE]
Ok i should be using the term materialist, but briefly my thinking was along the lines that a hardcore atheist would say to a question that we do not have the answer to. Their was nothing,their is nothing their will be nothing just nothing and thats it. But the general reply I don't know and i refuse to fill in the gaps with god or something supernatural seems to be the case

The Mad Hatter

mr fog light wrote: »

strobe wrote: »

Do you mind if I ask what the idea you had in your mind of an atheist was Fog? And why you now think it was inaccurate?

Ok i should be using the term materialist, but briefly my thinking was along the lines that a hardcore atheist would say to a question that we do not have the answer to. Their was nothing,their is nothing their will be nothing just nothing and thats it. But the general reply I don't know and i refuse to fill in the gaps with god or something supernatural seems to be the case

Even Richard Dawkins says he doesn't know, but he's fairly confident in his position. It wouldn't really be logical to say anything for certain.

My answers to the first three questions, incidentally, would be largely similar to the rest here, so I won't bother writing them out.

As to the last question: I don't think I'm any more joyful or sadder as an atheist than I was as in religion growing up, but I find it comforting that I won't last for eternity (though I'll be sad to miss out on what happens to the arts in the next few hundred years). It also makes me more inclined to actually live my life.

sink

My family is not at all religious, so I grew up in a house where religion was not a factor. Some of my earliest memories are of my granddad deriding priests and saying "never trust a man in a dress", he was quiet a committed atheist, an unusual thing back in his time.

My earliest contact with religion was trough school, my fathers side of the family was Anglican and I was baptized into the Church of Ireland and went to a COI school. The local Canon (a type of priest) came in for a weekly lesson. He would read us stories from the bible and I can remember it being one of my favorite classes. To me they were just interesting stories like any of the other books our teacher would read to us every week. I never remember taking them seriously. At the end of each lesson he would have us say a prayer. Sometimes we got to choose what we wanted to pray for. I remember speaking out one time and saying I didn't believe prayers were ever answered. The Canon replied along the lines of 'we can never know how the lord will choose to answer our prayers but he listens to every one of them', immediately I thought it was a cop out, it just didn't make sense to me.

In secondary school (still COI) we had chapel every morning and by this stage I thought religion was absolute nonsense so would try to dodge it as much as I could. I was not yet an atheist I didn't really know what I was but I knew I didn't believe in the Christian religion. My two favorite teachers were my maths teacher and science (later chemistry) teachers. I would have conversations with them on subjects such as the creation of matter and the nature of infinity, that stuff fascinated me. I read the book 'a brief history of time' by Stephen Hawking and I felt right, everything seemed to fit with my perspective. I decided that god was superfluous and most likely a human invention. I had long arguments with some of my friends who did believe and tbh, I couldn't argue against all their points but I never thought they were right. I wasn't really aware at the time of other atheists, there were no books arguing against religion in the school library and the internet had not really come of age yet. So I was basically just making up my own arguments against god which were not as well thought out as Dakins or Hitchens arguments and I was often left stumped by some argument of my religious friends.

After I left school and went to college I never talked or thought of religion much. Then Dawkins released the god delusion and I picked it up, it was the first proper atheistic book I had read. Reading it was like reading my own mind. I found I agreed with Dawkins so much, he put my own thoughts on religion in much greater clarity. That's when I became more interested in arguing about religion and other such topics on the internet and other places. I've subtly changed my philosophical position on god over the years, but at no stage in my life did I ever believe in one.

My trouble with religion and god has always been that it is too anthropocentric. It's stories and answers sound just like fiction written by man for his own amusement and benefit. They comfort us, give us meaning and place us at the center of everything. We tend to see everything in relative position to us, water is there so we can drink it, crops and animals are their so we can eat them, rock and trees are there so we can build shelters. Everything is here purely for our benefit, therefor it must have been provided by some powerful benevolence.

Humans in reality are but a small and insignificant in both the scales of the size of the universe and of cosmological time. We must remove ourselves from the picture and see it without our own egocentric biases. Nothing would be much different if we never existed. With modern science we have a decent understanding of how stars are born. And how the heavier elements came together in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and how through their destruction they were spread out to form planets such as ours. We have a descent understanding of how the laws of physics and chemistry formed the rocks and the oceans as they are. We have a good idea of how complex amino acids were strung together to form replicating molecules which evolved into the first living cells. We have a good idea of how these cells through competition adapted to the ever changing environment moving into new niches and becoming more and more complex. We have solid evidence that all life shares a common ancestry and that we are part of a grand tree of life.

Now that you know where I come from perhaps you will have a better understanding my answers to your questions.

1. What happens when you die?

Nothing, just like every life form that ever existed your consciousness ceases, like a dreamless sleep and you never wake up. The life you lived and the choices you made leave an impression upon all those around you. You continue to impact them long after you're gone and they in turn impact all those around them. In some small way your life permeates throughout your society until it's end.

The atoms and molecules in your body get recycled and go on to incorporate new life many many times. Assuming you had offspring your genes get passed on to form new generations, ever changing and evolving, your distant ancestors will look very different to you.

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

We don't know. Science is continuously progressing towards some answers but we don't know where it will take us or if we will ever know the whole story.

The answers provided by most religions always point towards the universe being created for us so that we are the indented purpose of the universe. When you step back that simply does not fit with the picture science provides. It's almost as if a person made up those answers to fill his own ego.

Reality is reality, it is not dependent on our perceptions or ideas. It can only be uncovered through empirical means and the answers do not have to fit a nice neat and easy picture for our feeble comprehension.

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

All biology is underpinned by chemistry which in turn is underpinned by physics which is underpinned by mathematics. At no stage from the quarks and bosons, trough atoms and molecules, through cells and multicellular organisms is there anything which does not follow those simple scientific rules. It's an apparition of our feeble minds, incapable of comprehending the billions of simple interactions which go into the formation of even a singled cell organism, which leads us to summon and invisible agent. When everything is broken down into simpler and simpler interactions there is no need for a mysterious supernatural force. That is just your evolved mind creating agents which are simple and easily comprehensible.


Wow that was longer than I intended it to be, guess I had a lot to say, sorry for the length.

mr fog light

no bother

Turtwig

sink wrote: »

My family is not at all religious, so I grew up in a house where religion was not a factor. Some of my earliest memories are of my granddad deriding priests and saying "never trust a man in a dress", he was quiet a committed atheist, an unusual thing back in his time.

My earliest contact with religion was trough school, my fathers side of the family was Anglican and I was baptized into the Church of Ireland and went to a COI school. The local Canon (a type of priest) came in for a weekly lesson. He would read us stories from the bible and I can remember it being one of my favorite classes. To me they were just interesting stories like any of the other books our teacher would read to us every week. I never remember taking them seriously. At the end of each lesson he would have us say a prayer. Sometimes we got to choose what we wanted to pray for. I remember speaking out one time and saying I didn't believe prayers were ever answered. The Canon replied along the lines of 'we can never know how the lord will choose to answer our prayers but he listens to every one of them', immediately I thought it was a cop out, it just didn't make sense to me.

In secondary school (still COI) we had chapel every morning and by this stage I thought religion was absolute nonsense so would try to dodge it as much as I could. I was not yet an atheist I didn't really know what I was but I knew I didn't believe in the Christian religion. My two favorite teachers were my maths teacher and science (later chemistry) teachers. I would have conversations with them on subjects such as the creation of matter and the nature of infinity, that stuff fascinated me. I read the book 'a brief history of time' by Stephen Hawking and I felt right, everything seemed to fit with my perspective. I decided that god was superfluous and most likely a human invention. I had long arguments with some of my friends who did believe and tbh, I couldn't argue against all their points but I never thought they were right. I wasn't really aware at the time of other atheists, there were no books arguing against religion in the school library and the internet had not really come of age yet. So I was basically just making up my own arguments against god which were not as well thought out as Dakins or Hitchens arguments and I was often left stumped by some argument of my religious friends.

After I left school and went to college I never talked or thought of religion much. Then Dawkins released the god delusion and I picked it up, it was the first proper atheistic book I had read. Reading it was like reading my own mind. I found I agreed with Dawkins so much, he put my own thoughts on religion in much greater clarity. That's when I became more interested in arguing about religion and other such topics on the internet and other places. I've subtly changed my philosophical position on god over the years, but at no stage in my life did I ever believe in one.

My trouble with religion and god has always been that it is too anthropocentric. It's stories and answers sound just like fiction written by man for his own amusement and benefit. They comfort us, give us meaning and place us at the center of everything. We tend to see everything in relative position to us, water is there so we can drink it, crops and animals are their so we can eat them, rock and trees are there so we can build shelters. Everything is here purely for our benefit, therefor it must have been provided by some powerful benevolence.

Humans in reality are but a small and insignificant in both the scales of the size of the universe and of cosmological time. We must remove ourselves from the picture and see it without our own egocentric biases. Nothing would be much different if we never existed. With modern science we have a decent understanding of how stars are born. And how the heavier elements came together in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and how through their destruction they were spread out to form planets such as ours. We have a descent understanding of how the laws of physics and chemistry formed the rocks and the oceans as they are. We have a good idea of how complex amino acids were strung together to form replicating molecules which evolved into the first living cells. We have a good idea of how these cells through competition adapted to the ever changing environment moving into new niches and becoming more and more complex. We have solid evidence that all life shares a common ancestry and that we are part of a grand tree of life.

Now that you know where I come from perhaps you will have a better understanding my answers to your questions.

1. What happens when you die?

Nothing, just like every life form that ever existed your consciousness ceases, like a dreamless sleep and you never wake up. The life you lived and the choices you made leave an impression upon all those around you. You continue to impact them long after you're gone and they in turn impact all those around them. In some small way your life permeates throughout your society until it's end.

The atoms and molecules in your body get recycled and go on to incorporate new life many many times. Assuming you had offspring your genes get passed on to form new generations, ever changing and evolving, your distant ancestors will look very different to you.

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

We don't know. Science is continuously progressing towards some answers but we don't know where it will take us or if we will ever know the whole story.

The answers provided by most religions always point towards the universe being created for us so that we are the indented purpose of the universe. When you step back that simply does not fit with the picture science provides. It's almost as if a person made up those answers to fill his own ego.

Reality is reality, it is not dependent on our perceptions or ideas. It can only be uncovered through empirical means and the answers do not have to fit a nice neat and easy picture for our feeble comprehension.

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

All biology is underpinned by chemistry which in turn is underpinned by physics which is underpinned by mathematics. At no stage from the quarks and bosons, trough atoms and molecules, through cells and multicellular organisms is there anything which does not follow those simple scientific rules. It's an apparition of our feeble minds, incapable of comprehending the billions of simple interactions which go into the formation of even a singled cell organism, which leads us to summon and invisible agent. When everything is broken down into simpler and simpler interactions there is no need for a mysterious supernatural force. That is just your evolved mind creating agents which are simple and easily comprehensible.


Wow that was longer than I intended it to be, guess I had a lot to say, sorry for the length.

tldr, but quoting it expands this thread size by half.
Oh, ok now I'll read it


Edit : It was a good post well worth reposting.

strobe

sink wrote: »

Wow that was longer than I intended it to be, guess I had a lot to say, sorry for the length.

Don't apologise man. "Would read again. *****" -Empire Magazine.

Mark Hamill

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

Probable atheist view:Outside the obivous,Nothing

I dont know for sure, but like you say, it most likely seems to be nothing.

mr fog light wrote: »

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

The big bang is the most likely explanation at the moment, miles more likely than anything religious, as it, you know, makes some kind of sense.

mr fog light wrote: »

Say your thinking is "the big bang" im not not looking for a big bang explanation but more like....i read book A, this got me to a dicussion with friends which got me to book B then i tought about the whole thing for about a year and found that im an atheist....

Common sense and skepticism. You dont need to bring alternative views to a discussion about any religious belief, just questioning them in terms of their baseless starting assumptions will lead you to their inevitable contradictions. Essentially, just honestly question every assumption and conclusion. They all fall apart after a few minutes. Atheism is just the default position when you recognise this.

mr fog light wrote: »

If your thinking is along the lines of, its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

A complete lack of any evidence whatsoever for any of the specific supernatural beliefs that exist in the world, coupled with a complete lack of a reason to bother believing it could be any unknown "supernatural" event simply out of ignorance.

mr fog light wrote: »

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

Brain function ceases. Certain bodily functions continue unchecked. Basically the body returns to the same entropy as the system it is in.

mr fog light wrote: »

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.

Came to the conclusion largely on my own. Didn't (and still dont) read any atheistic writers, didn't need to.

mr fog light wrote: »

Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Neither, it was just a conclusion. It was just one of those conclusions, like learning the sky is blue, that didn't derive in me an emotive response, it was just the honest best answer and being happy or sad wouldn't change it, so why bother?

Sam Vimes

1. What happens when you die?

Your brain function ceases and your body decomposes. You are gone.


2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

No idea

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

That's kind of like asking when you turn your computer off where does Windows go.

mr fog light

Thanks again, Now just 1 more question and im outta your hair

Im quiet clear about the atheist stance on mainstream organised religion.But im still interested in the opinions of the regular posters here on the following issue. Now maybe you don't have an opinion maybe you all differ or maybe you think i should know by now. But if you know about the subject and have something to say im all ears.

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle. Im not looking for your stance on mysticsm and spirituality just the 4 above.Also im sure some will say if your asking about those 4 why not X,Y and Z and you may be correct but nevertheless id like to stick to the 4.

I'll be gettin a copy of Sam Harris End of Faith just got collect a few euros

Zillah

mr fog light wrote: »

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle.

You don't really expect many of us to have read their works, do you?

sink

mr fog light wrote: »

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle. Im not looking for your stance on mysticsm and spirituality just the 4 above.Also im sure some will say if your asking about those 4 why not X,Y and Z and you may be correct but nevertheless id like to stick to the 4.

Can't say I've heard of any of them. No offence but I tend to not read beyond the cover of books on the subject of mysticism, unless it deals with debunking it. I don't have the patience let alone the time.

Nemi

mr fog light wrote: »

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle. Im not looking for your stance on mysticsm and spirituality just the 4 above.

Likewise, never read any of them.

mr fog light wrote: »

I'll be gettin a copy of Sam Harris End of Faith just got collect a few euros

Believe me, Sam don't need the money.

Although he is less cranky than Dawkins.

Dades

Heard of a couple of those lads but never read any of their stuff.

robindch

mr fog light wrote: »

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle.

There was I thinking that Ramana de mello was some really interesting, multi-cultural kind of guy when I suddenly realised there are two commas missing.

Gambler

mr fog light wrote: »

1. What happens when you die?

Probable atheist view:Outside the obivous,Nothing

It only takes me a few moments to get my head around the notion before i feel i have an understanding of it.
So you can take it that im ok with this part and i hope you attempt to give me some feedback on part 2 & 3

You have this one fairly nailed. When I die I die, What made me "me" is gone. The only afterlife I have is the impact I leave on the world (kids if I have any, people I have influenced and whatever good or bad difference I have made in the world) and thats fine by me. To be honest I think the idea that there is an afterlife is a bad thing for humanity. For me if everyone thought to themselves I have x number of years to make my mark and once that is gone that's it then I personally think more people would try harder to make the most of the time they have.

mr fog light wrote: »

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

Say your thinking is "the big bang" im not not looking for a big bang explanation but more like....i read book A, this got me to a dicussion with friends which got me to book B then i tought about the whole thing for about a year and found that im an atheist....
If your thinking is along the lines of, its beyond our comprehension, i would be especially interested to know how you came to the conclusion that their is nothing supernatural

My personal feeling is that there is no "start". I believe there was a big bang but what's to say that there was nothing before that. Yes it was the start of "our" space time but that's not to say that there wasn't another space time before it or a different space time outside of our universe.

Personally I think the idea that there is a start middle and end to everything (including the universe) is a natural reaction because it anything outside of that is so alien to our personal universe. Humans are all born live and die so we expect everything to have a start middle and end.

For me when I was growing I was fascinated by the concept of infinity. I spent years trying to wrap my head around the concept of something that has no end. The idea that if you point to a place in the sky there could be intelligent life on a planet in that direction but in an infinite universe you could travel forever in that direction and still never get there was astounding. I know that that isn't actually the case and the universe isn't actually infinite in that sense but that concept of infinity stuck with me and as a result I have always had an issue with the idea that there was a finite start to "everything". I think there was a finite start to our universe but I don't believe that = a finite start to "everything", just to our universe.

mr fog light wrote: »

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

We are basically machines. Amazing, complex, fantastic machines but like all machines over time there is wear and tear and the energy we put into them isn't enough to keep the whole thing running (or they get damaged beyond repair) and we stop.

i would also be interested to know if you were strongly influenced by others when you formed these views for example ...i read a book written by someone who seemed very clever and i generally go along with what he/she says.
Oh..and one last thing when you came to a realisation/conclusion is it a depressing one or a joyful one

Of course you are influenced by other people. Everything you do, say and think is a product of your own personal universe. For me I came to the conclusion that I was an atheist very slowly.

I was very religious as a young child, then as a teenager I was very "spiritual" (believed completely in a God but thought all organised religion was wrong), then in my early to mid twenties I was more agnostic (I don't know if there is or isn't a god but what's the harm in belief) to know in my thirties as an atheist who feels that actually belief in a god is currently doing more harm than good in the world. I would have no problem with belief in god if it was more benign but it isn't. And I'm not just talking about wars based on religion (of which I still believe there are lots) but when a belief in god interferes with education, personal choice, legal impact on non believers (gay marriage, right of a woman to choose what happens to her body etc. etc. etc.) and the general daily of people who choose not to believe or who believe differently..

Gambler

mr fog light wrote: »

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle.

Never heard of any of them but after a quick google search my initial impressions are:

Eckhart Tolle: First impression is that he reminds me of those life coach con men running seminars on how to make a million dollars in 6 months but for religion instead. Then I wonder if he's actually just a poor guy who went a bit mad (literally if he really spent several years as a vagrant wandering the streets in a state of deep bliss) and somehow came out the far end with a load of people following him as a spiritual guidance councillor.

Anthony de Mello: Seems like a nice guy, I know lot's of nice priests who have some very clever things to say on how people should treat each other and he seems like a good guy. Haven't seen anything to say that he knows any more than anyone else though.

Jiddu Krishnamurti: My favourite of the ones you posted. Wikipedia had this to say:

Denouncing the concept of saviors, spiritual leaders, or any other intermediaries to reality, he urged people to directly discover the underlying causes of the problems facing individuals and society. Such discovery he considered as being within reach of everyone, irrespective of background, ability, or disposition. He declared allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy, and spent the rest of his life traveling the world as an independent individual speaker, speaking to large and small groups, as well as with interested individuals.

To my mind if all religious people took this approach to belief then the world really would be a much better place.. THEN I would have no problem with belief in god.

Ramana Maharshi: Again like Jiddu he seemed to have a "look after your own house" kind of philosophy which I respect greatly. But neither of them have said anything that I can see would make me change my personal beliefs..

mr fog light

robindch wrote: »

There was I thinking that Ramana de mello was some really interesting, multi-cultural kind of guy when I suddenly realised there are two commas missing.

:eek:S**te i did sorry!! ha ha ha

Pushtrak

mr fog light wrote: »

:eek:S**te i did sorry!! ha ha ha

Seeing as you are still there, any other questions you want to throw out there? Couldn't really say anything about your last one as I'd never heard of any of the four.

mr fog light

Nope!! im good with that for now thanks:)

firstprime

1. What happens when you die?

Well, I dont believe that there is a soul or any other form of existence beyond what we see, we are machines. When we come into the world we are a blank slate and we become who we are by experience and learning. averything that makes us who we are is just information stored in our brains. Therefore I believe that when the time comes and our bodies have been worn out we, just like a computer, must shut down (the notion of backing up the hard drive and other such methods of data transfer of course must be discussed when comparing the himan body and brain to a computer but that is for another thread). Also, while i do not believe in any afterlife, reincarnation etc, i obviouslysee the allure of everlasting life. i just cant see it as more than a fairy tale.

2. How did space, time and everything come into being?

Although alot more is known on this subject the question is equally difficult. It is virtually impossible to even fathom what happened at the dawn of time and beyond, let alone come up with valid theorys, yet i think modern science has done a fair job with what it has been given. im no expert by anyones standards but i have watched some documentaries and read some articles on this and several theories seem valid. from what i have learned i believe that the notion that people have of the beginning of the universe doesnt take into account that the big bang created both time and space. The space part is relatively easy to understand on a basic level, with the big bang causing a singuarity to explode and expand into all the matter in the universe. The idea of the big bang creating time though is a more difficult one. It is impossible to imagine that before the big bang there was no time, did matter simply exist without moving forward or back through time? Was there a different time stream before? We may never know the answers to these questions or what happened before there was time. without this information it is impossible to say difinitively what came before, or caused the big bang. However, as you can see i do believe the big bang theory and the implications and assumptions that follow it. i definitely do not humour the idea of an omniputent being creating all of existence (Especially not the biblical version) as this makes far too many assumptions and has no scientific evidence or backing.

3. With requard to all living things animals plants etc. what is it that makes something alive as opposed to dead? or to rephrase the question when you see an animal die what is it that you think has happened if its not something suppernatural that has left them.

As i said i the first question I believe that living creature and organisms are merely machines with varying levels of compexity. through life we learn and gain our own personality through life experiences. when something dies it shuts down, either because it has been damaged beyond repair or because it has simply become worn out. the difference between a living organism and a dead one is that one is still functioning.

Also on the matter of the meaning of life, I believe that it is just to survive, evolve, enjoy yourself, and improve yourself and the human race in general.

If you think my views are cold and heartless, i am just viewing life and the universe from a technical pont of view with no emotional or religious ideals. this does not mean that i would murder somebody and brush it off as shutting down a machine, I see now the value and importance of life more than I ever did through its complexity and mystery.

*forgot to post....

strobe

mr fog light wrote: »

Thanks again, Now just 1 more question and im outta your hair

Im quiet clear about the atheist stance on mainstream organised religion.But im still interested in the opinions of the regular posters here on the following issue. Now maybe you don't have an opinion maybe you all differ or maybe you think i should know by now. But if you know about the subject and have something to say im all ears.

What is the atheist stance on any material that has come from the following 4 people Ramana Maharshi Juddi Krisnamurti Anthony de mello and Eckhart Tolle. Im not looking for your stance on mysticsm and spirituality just the 4 above.Also im sure some will say if your asking about those 4 why not X,Y and Z and you may be correct but nevertheless id like to stick to the 4.

I'll be gettin a copy of Sam Harris End of Faith just got collect a few euros

I've only ever read anything by Ramana out of the four. Needless to say I wasn't overly impressed. In my opinion he was driven by what I think most religious (spiritual) people are driven by. The fear of his own death. Unable to cope with that thought and having been raised in a religious environment he grasped onto the idea that when one dies it is only the body that dies but the "spirit" lives on. This gave him a great amount of comfort and peace of mind and so he plunged headlong into that belief, convinced himself of it and then spent the remainder of his life re-affirming that conviction.

While I'm sure people that look to his teachings with reverence will try to tell me his message obviously went over my head or I wasn't receptive to it or I was too close minded, which has happened more than once, I clearly disagree. I feel I understood what he spoke of perfectly, and I think there is some value to some of his teachings, I just think he was wrong on the main points.

Like with Christianity (for example) there are some good points to take from his teachings and if it gives people comfort or makes them happier then I'm perfectly happy for them to believe/ follow it. As long as their beliefs don't interfere with any one else, in any way, whatsoever.

Nemi

Gambler wrote: »

Jiddu Krishnamurti: My favourite of the ones you posted. Wikipedia had this to say:

Denouncing the concept of saviors, spiritual leaders, or any other intermediaries to reality, he urged people to directly discover the underlying causes of the problems facing individuals and society. Such discovery he considered as being within reach of everyone, irrespective of background, ability, or disposition. He declared allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy, and spent the rest of his life traveling the world as an independent individual speaker, speaking to large and small groups, as well as with interested individuals.

What did he do to actually earn a crust? Does "independent individual speaker" constitute employment?