Why are you an atheist?

Dades

ShaneTheThird wrote: »

Hi guys, I suppose this is as good a place as any to introduce myself.

Hai!

ShaneTheThird wrote: »

There's probably not an accurate term to describe people like me.

Yes there is - you're an atheist. Or more accurately an agnostic atheist like the rest of us.

robindch

ShaneTheThird wrote: »

As regards religions as a whole I generally have no issue. Whatever stops you from raping and pillaging really. The organisations may be corrupt to the corner but the ideals seem ok.

Have a read of Leviticus -- quite a lot of raping and pillaging in there, most of it at The Lord's behest.

ShaneTheThird wrote: »

There's probably not an accurate term to describe people like me.

Agnostic atheist, I'd have said.

And, welcome, btw!

kylith

ShaneTheThird wrote: »

Hi guys, I suppose this is as good a place as any to introduce myself. Lurked a bit for a while before deciding to join the fun.
There's probably not an accurate term to describe people like me. I think that the simple processes of nature and physics are fascinating, buy not in a religious sense. The idea that these are built into the very being of the universe or developed almost randomly over time is, to me, far more amazing than any intelligent design.
As regards religions as a whole I generally have no issue. Whatever stops you from raping and pillaging really. The organisations may be corrupt to the corner but the ideals seem ok.
I have a pretty low opinion of humanity, but that's ok because it generally doesn't care and churns out geniuses every now and again to redeem itself.
As for the exsistance of God issue, I hold the line "There's no proof either way". While the knowledge of the universe may be infinite, our ability to comprehensions it isn't; there's so much we don't and may never know. Which to me is a much better motivator than living with cloud people forever.

robindch wrote: »

Have a read of Leviticus -- quite a lot of raping and pillaging in there, most of it at The Lord's behest.Agnostic atheist, I'd have said.

And, welcome, btw!

Not to mention that something like 93% of people incarcerated in the US are religious. Religions don't seem to do anything to prevent crime, personally I think it's because they take away a person's responsibilities for their actions.

And welcome!

Kiwi in IE

I am an atheist because I have never found any good reason not to be one. Atheism is our natural state in the absence of religious brainwashing.

Kiwi in IE

I had a patient once who believed that the universe is a toy that alien beings play with. I really struggled with why this man was considered insane because of this delusion, when the beliefs of all organised religions are as ridiculous and unprovable, but their followers are considered perfectly sane.

Brian Shanahan

Rasheed wrote: »

I don't know anyone that is an atheist and was just wondering why people are atheists, were ye religious at one stage and did something change your mind? Or where ye parents atheists and pass it on? Just curious about it!

Well I was born and raised Catholic, but more importantly I was born and raised to think, so as I got older I started questioning the mores and ideals and policies of the church, so by the time I dropped out of college in 2003 I considered myself "pantheist" (probably the only religious position that can be reconciled with reality IMO). But then a few years later (when I was living opposite St. John's Cathedral) I was sitting down watching a documentary about a mysterious man who jumped from the top of one of the towers on Sept 11, 2001. At first the narrator thought it might have been a Puerto Rican chef working in a restaurant at the top of the tower, but the reaction of his family was "No he would never demean us and god by committing suicide. He would be damned to hell for all eternity for doing that. It couldn't possibly be him, he's too true to god." At the time I was thinking, "if he did it it wasn't suicide, as the man was dead the moment the plane hit. It simply became a choice between quick and easy or slow and hard." It turned out though that it wasn't the chef.

But that night I was thinking more and more about it, until eventually I said to myself, "What kind of ****ed up god does this to his people, forcing themselves to exist in agony, when they are already effectively dead, and forces their families and loved ones to live a life of dread and fear just because their loved ones may have killed themselves or done something else against the rules and being disproportionally punished. I want to have no more to do with this ****ed up piece of ****." That's when I decided that there was no god, and that even if there was it was worthy of my contempt.

I think my whole position is best summed up by Havelock Vetinari:

Unseen Academicals wrote:

I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

Kiwi in IE

I guess unlike many in here I was lucky enough not to have endured childhood indoctrination. I perhaps should have a more sympathetic attitude towards those who continue to buy into the delusion as I have no idea what it is like to be brainwashed from birth with a particular religion being presented as reality. I was taught about religion and even went to an Anglican primary school, but it never interested me, and I can clearly recall knowing that I did not believe what I was taught about Christianity as young as eight years old. My parents were never actively atheist, or negative about religion in front of me, they just weren't religious. None of my family were. My partner's experience was completely different. Indoctrinated with Catholicism from birth by parents who had the same experience in their childhoods. He despises the RCC and all it stands for but still experiences what he describes as 'Catholic guilt'. If in some bizarre, hypothetical situation I was forced to pick an organised religion to convert to, of all of them Catholicism would be very, very close to last. Maybe even last equal. I am thinking of stipulating in my will that if myself and my partner were to both die before our son reaches adulthood, that it is our wishes that he is not brought up Catholic or indoctrinated by any religion.

Sarky

Oh, that Catholic guilt. You simply can't beat it for ensuring you grow up awkward and messed up when it comes to interacting with the opposite sex. Or simply having fun in almost any form, actually. And then thinking that it's somehow your fault.

Kiwi in IE

Sarky wrote: »

Oh, that Catholic guilt. You simply can't beat it for ensuring you grow up awkward and messed up when it comes to interacting with the opposite sex. Or simply having fun in almost any form, actually. And then thinking that it's somehow your fault.

It makes me really angry that bright, intelligent people should be hampered throughout life by this sh*te even though logically they know it is lies.

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

Oh, that Catholic guilt. You simply can't beat it for ensuring you grow up awkward and messed up when it comes to interacting with the opposite sex. Or simply having fun in almost any form, actually. And then thinking that it's somehow your fault.

Yet, ironically, if one wants to 'interact' with one's own sex all hell breaks out.

Beruthiel

Sarky wrote: »

Oh, that Catholic guilt.

When I think back to how that was so strongly instilled in me and how it stunted my growth as as child and young teenager it angers me.
It took years to get myself to overcome it.

Duggy747

Raised in a typical Catholic house but religion and the God / Jesus concept always flew over my head. My sheer hatred for going to Mass probably didn't help...........except when I asked to be a servant because I saw others were able to skip class and would get a pound for funerals

As a kid I just accepted that there was a "God" because I thought that's what you were supposed to do, like it was compulsory for being Irish because I was surrounded by religious statues and had to say a prayer every morning in primary school but I never actually believed in any of it. Too much stuff just didn't make sense to me as a kid.

Didn't know any prayers and would just mime "Mars Bars" because I thought that's what people mouths looked like when they were saying them :pac:

Questioning religion used to get me into fierce trouble like "Were the Ten Commandments sorta laws to make people behave when they won't listen to the police?" or "If all this stuff happened back then.........then why won't it happen now when people want to see it?". I used to get a right bollocking from teachers over stuff like that, my parents would always avoid answering them and my older sisters would tell me to shut up :P

I guess I can credit my atheism to my 2nd class primary school teacher who brought us to a load of places frequently (probably moreso than any other teacher I've ever had since him). Lots of other factors involved but this one place he brought us to is up there as being one of the most significant aspects.

One day, he brought us to a field waaaaay outside the town, hidden away behind a forest..............would sound sketchy these days :pac: It was an unkempt mess covered in nettles with some random rocks and mossy headstones.

He explained to us that it was a graveyard for unbaptised / born out of wedlock babies and that, at the time, were all stuck in limbo for eternity.

What he said and what I saw stayed with me forever. I looked at one headstone that had a faded out picture of the grave's occupant and I got an image of a guy at the pearly gates refusing a baby in because it wasn't splashed with water, like it was a piece of shìt thing to do.

That teacher was a legend, everyone who ever had him always said he was their favourite. That day out completely opened my mind on how I saw the world and perceived things.

eviltwin

I'm atheist because I don't believe in God, can't really expand on it much more than that really.

equivariant

Its a cliche (round these parts anyway), but I am an atheist for exactly the same reasons as I (and many others) am an a-fairyist, a-goblinist, a-unicornist, etc....

Penn

Like others, there was no particular incident or reason why I became an atheist. I believed in God as a child because it's what I was told was the truth, and that gradually wore away as I started thinking for myself. Even when I did believe I never really cared about it anyway. It was always just a case of listening about it in mass or school, occasionally praying for something I needed (which never worked so I quickly gave that up), and spending most of my time in Mass just listening out for the clues of when to stand, sit, kneel etc (or as an altar boy, looking out for the signs when to do whatever) as opposed to actually listening to the prayers and gospels.

Religion was just never something that meant anything to me. As a child, I was more concerned with being good because Santa was watching me, not God/Jesus.

Hotblack Desiato

Yeah, similar for me, Penn, although my mother was very religious and when I was a child I went along with it, it didn't ever mean anything. She did want me to become an altar boy once, I refused As I got older it made less and less sense especially the more I read about the cosmos, I think about 90% of the books I got out of the library when I was a kid were about space

Bobby42

I went along with being catholic as a kid as it just was the thing that everyone else was doing. For a while I was very shy and wouldn't want to draw attention to myself so just went along with things.

However, my older brother stopped going to mass and a while later I just felt that religion simply meant nothing to me. Going to mass was just so boring and nothing resonated with me at all.

There was one time during mass that I'll never forget that I realised that the whole catholicism thing was a load of nonsense.

I was only eleven at the time but I couldn't help but question what the priest was saying.

During the mass the priest said "for those who have hunger give bread, and for those who have bread give hunger, for justice".

I couldn't help but think:

OK, you still have a problem though, because you just gave the people with bread hunger. So you're back to square one, you still have the problem of people without food. This doesn't make any sense. And what did the people with bread do wrong? Why did they need to have all their food taken off them in the name of justice? Should people feel guilty about feeding themselves?

That was it for me, I couldn't listen to this absolute nonsense and just accept it.

I made up my mind that I was atheist well before my confirmation. Still made it though, which I regret but the family wanted the day out and all so I wasn't going to cause a fuss.

kylith

I'd say he meant 'give them a hunger for justice' rather than 'give them hunger. For justice!'

My own watershed moment was when the priest started going on about how to rear children and I remember thinking 'why is he talking about something he knows nothing about?' I guess it started me wondering what else the priests were claiming authority over with no grounds.

robindch

kylith wrote: »

[...] to rear children [...]

Maybe it's just me, but I've never been all that comfortable with that phrase, especially coming from priests.

Ewweeee...

Hotblack Desiato

kylith wrote: »

I'd say he meant 'give them a hunger for justice' rather than 'give them hunger. For justice!'.

For great justice.
You have no chance to survive make your time.

Drumpot

I have never seen or been up in space, been on the moon or had the pleasure of travelling the universe, but I dont completely disgard all scientific explanation of what goes on in the universe. That said, I dont put all my faith in science either. When I see Stephen Hawkings saying there prob is not a god in one documentary and then in another documentary hes describing the workings of a black hole (which nobody has ever been anywhere near) in specific details, its not hard to see how gullible and easily led people can be.

There are billions of things that we dont see or understand that exist. If a person is willing to accept scientific explanation for things (black holes, planets they have never actually landed on) simply because "they make sense" then I find their atheist view quite odd. They are putting their faith in a human ideologoy (or system). How much more fallible can a system be, even if it is being driven by some of the best minds?

Personally, I can see how religious nuts/extremists and poorly run churches like the Catholic Church can turn people off believing in a god. What I do right now is to try and believe in a god as I see it (not the vengeful f**ker they teach in catholic church).

I dont know if there is a god, but I think its extremely arrogant view for humans to think that they are "all that". That we are represent the peak of evolution in the entire universe. If you believe that there could be Aliens, then you have to believe that there could be beings that are way ahead of us scientifically, evolutionwise and that they could possess powers that we do not comprehend. Science is mostly "best guess" because its based on the limited knowledge we have today. We havent even explored much of our oceans, yet science is confident speaking about parts of our universe that we have only pictures to go on!

The irrefutable fact of life is that science cannot explain everything and we, as a species, do not have all the answers of life or the universe. Nobody can confidently say that there is no "god" (absolutely), because its an opinion. An opinion formed by their (usually bad) experiences with religion (human written religion) and based on a science community that simply has no concrete evidence one way or another.

robindch

Drumpot wrote: »

[...] science cannot explain everything [...]

Nobody says it does.

coffee_cake

How does waffling about aliens mean there must be a god

Otacon

Drumpot wrote: »

I have never seen or been up in space, been on the moon or had the pleasure of travelling the universe, but I dont completely disgard all scientific explanation of what goes on in the universe. That said, I dont put all my faith in science either. When I see Stephen Hawkings saying there prob is not a god in one documentary and then in another documentary hes describing the workings of a black hole (which nobody has ever been anywhere near) in specific details, its not hard to see how gullible and easily led people can be.

There are billions of things that we dont see or understand that exist. If a person is willing to accept scientific explanation for things (black holes, planets they have never actually landed on) simply because "they make sense" then I find their atheist view quite odd. They are putting their faith in a human ideologoy (or system). How much more fallible can a system be, even if it is being driven by some of the best minds?

Personally, I can see how religious nuts/extremists and poorly run churches like the Catholic Church can turn people off believing in a god. What I do right now is to try and believe in a god as I see it (not the vengeful f**ker they teach in catholic church).

I dont know if there is a god, but I think its extremely arrogant view for humans to think that they are "all that". That we are represent the peak of evolution in the entire universe. If you believe that there could be Aliens, then you have to believe that there could be beings that are way ahead of us scientifically, evolutionwise and that they could possess powers that we do not comprehend. Science is mostly "best guess" because its based on the limited knowledge we have today. We havent even explored much of our oceans, yet science is confident speaking about parts of our universe that we have only pictures to go on!

The irrefutable fact of life is that science cannot explain everything and we, as a species, do not have all the answers of life or the universe. Nobody can confidently say that there is no "god" (absolutely), because its an opinion. An opinion formed by their (usually bad) experiences with religion (human written religion) and based on a science community that simply has no concrete evidence one way or another.

I had to re-read this a few times before I came to the realisation that you don't seem to understand how science works at all.

Even some of the most concrete assertions made by 'science' are still theories - gravity and evolution for instance. When Hawking describes black holes, he is using all of the data he can find to theorise what's happening. He would be the first to tell you he could be completely wrong.

Your last paragraph also seems to imply you believe atheists are all gnostic, which is not the case. Many, like myself, are agnostic atheists. We do not believe in a god or gods but do not know for certain.

coffee_cake

Well "still" theories, they're going to stay theories forever, they don't graduate out of that status. Theory is an explanation of observed facts
But yeah, could be wrong

iDave

I could give you my story but theres nothing unique enough to stand out from whats already been said.
What I will say is when i was in Bosnia last year a tour guide of Muslim origin explained why he was atheist.

[HTML]I want to drink beer and have girlfriends[/HTML]

Couldnt of put it better myself.

Sierra 117

I used to believe in god when I was a kid but I became an atheist sometime in my teens when I realized that there was simply no evidence for the existence of a god.

I also didn't understand why "God" deserves to be worshiped given how cruel he is. Condemning people to a fiery pit because they don't believe in him or follow his rules does not a loving god make, despite the mental gymnastics his followers perform to convince themselves and others.

Drumpot

Otacon wrote: »

I had to re-read this a few times before I came to the realisation that you don't seem to understand how science works at all.

Even some of the most concrete assertions made by 'science' are still theories - gravity and evolution for instance. When Hawking describes black holes, he is using all of the data he can find to theorise what's happening. He would be the first to tell you he could be completely wrong.

Your last paragraph also seems to imply you believe atheists are all gnostic, which is not the case. Many, like myself, are agnostic atheists. We do not believe in a god or gods but do not know for certain.

Actually, I had edited a line out about science always correcting itself, but until its corrected its usually taken (mainstream) as science fact (blackholes etc) while the science community takes a more objective view (its just a theory).

I wasnt having a go at anybody specifically, just challanging the general opinions that I would consider as a reason given as to why somebody could scoff at people believing in a higher power. Neither party can prove it either way, yet in both scenarios, there would be theoretical explanations (my example was space - blackholes etc) that many people would be happier to believe in over the existance of god.

My last line was more to suggest that if you believe in many of the science "theories" about certain elements of life, you are believing in something you cant actually see, feel, taste or have any physical sense of understanding (other then the limited understanding we as humans can have of the universe in our tiny planet). Given this, I dont understand how ANY atheist could objectively state with confidence that there is no all powerful being, when anything that is not physically on front of them or something that they have no experience in/with is something they themselves cannot confirm.

Drumpot

Sierra 117 wrote: »

I used to believe in god when I was a kid but I became an atheist sometime in my teens when I realized that there was simply no evidence for the existence of a god.

I also didn't understand why "God" deserves to be worshiped given how cruel he is. Condemning people to a fiery pit because they don't believe in him or follow his rules does not a loving god make, despite the mental gymnastics his followers perform to convince themselves and others.

I used to feel the exact same way as you posted until I figured out that God doesnt have to be the vengeful one portrayed in the bible. He doesnt have to be the kind of person that certain religions project him and its wrong to assume that people do acts of atrocities by his will.

Many people think if god doesnt answer their prayers (as they see it), that he isnt there. Its not proof hes not there, it might be just a sign that you have lost your faith in whoever you think/thought god was. Sometimes he has answered but people cannot see what is right on front of them (relationships, friends, qualities in themselves) because they are looking in the wrong places.

I am catholic but for a long time I didnt think there was a god. The vision of god from catholic readings is not a higher power that fills me with anything other then fear. That aside, certain events of my life have led me to question god on many occasions.

More recently I have realised (havent gone back to church), that it doesnt really matter if there is or isnt a god. There may or may not be a god or higher power, but I am happy to believe that there is somebody/something out there of a higher power then humans. I get a sense of peace knowing that there is possibly a higher power.

nozzferrahhtoo

Drumpot wrote: »

Given this, I dont understand how ANY atheist could objectively state with confidence that there is no all powerful being

I think if you take the time to read a large amount of the posts around here before you post the above you will find that the position of many people here is not that there is no such being but that there is no reason to think there is one.

The idea there is a god is entirely unsubstantiated and devoid of all arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that lend it even a modicum of credence.

As such why treat the idea there is a god in any way different to any other notion that simply pops into your head right now without any basis or substantiation?

When you say " Neither party can prove it either way" you do little more than miss the fact that both parties do not have to. Only the party postulating the existence of this entity has to substantiate their position. Until then the rest of us can just point out they are engaged in baseless speculation and fantasy.

Nothing wrong with baseless speculation and fantasy. Without it we would not be the species we are. But the issue starts when people forget that that is all they are engaged in and actually start thinking these fantasies to be true.