What is Atheism? What is Agnosticism? Do / Should either even exist? Are they hated?

Hi,

First off, I must warn you, it's a long post and it's really just a collection of questions, ideas and beliefs, so if it doesn't sound interesting or if you don't have the time, I thought I'd save you by putting this little summary at the top.

So, I thought this would be an interesting topic to put to the good people of this forum to perhaps share your views, if you wish, or maybe even to shed some light on my own views and share ideas or enlighten me on certain things I may not understand or might just be wrong about.

First of all, I have no religious belief. I don't believe in God, I don't believe in Heaven or Hell.

Science is my bible.

What do I think about some of the burning questions, such as, what happens when you die? Well, I believe before you were born is the same as after you die. Nothing. There is no sense of consciousness or time or of being. One of my favorite quotations is that of Stephen Hawkins (he wasn't directly referring to religion at the time, I just found it interesting), he said: "We are the temporary custodians of the molecules that make up our being..." And that's what I believe. Everything is connected, we are all just a random collection of bits and pieces formed to make something. We are an energy. Energy as we know can't be destroyed, it's constant, and perhaps that's where the idea of reincarnation comes from, being reborn. Perhaps it's possible. But the energy that forms the next person may be a part of the same energy that forms me and parts of energy that formed billions of other people. No person exists twice. Maybe we experience consciousness again, as a completely different person? Who knows. I doubt it, but I don't know enough about it to make a judgment call on it. Nobody does.

I think we have such a sense of ownership of our identity, that's the part I don't get.

Another burning question, where does the universe come from?

The answer is I don't know. I think the big bang is part of it, I don't think it was the beginning and whatever it is a part of, I think is so unfathomable to you and I, that we neither have the intelligence, understanding or advancement to ever be able to answer that question in our current state. We are so limited, our understanding is so limited, but why does there have to be an answer for everything?

If you were to begin a course in Economics in university and on your first day someone asked you what happened during the great depression, or how did British, German and American economies perform after world war II, you're probably not going to know a whole lot about it. So should I just make something up? Or should I be happy with the answer "I don't know" until there is a rational enough collection of evidence that I can then say conclusively that I know, and then call it a fact, rather than speculate and presume it to be true.

Because that's all religion is to me. A made up answer because of a lack of information. Ancient times, the sun rises and falls, we worship it, we don't know what it is, we make sacrifices for rain. Then as humanity evolves, access and sharing of information becomes more available, then we have social movements all over the world, Christianity, Hindu, Judaism...all claiming different Gods and having all of the answers. Wasn't this the first form of social movement before there were well defined borders, well defined nations or Government?

Wasn't someone like Jesus merely a leader of men, who assembled his army of people to defend against oppression? Like a Martin Luther King figure more than an all-powerful being. Of course recordings of his existence are highly flawed, contradictory and embezzled. Who knows, maybe he never even claimed to be the son of God, but after his being made into a martyr, people saw fit to cast him into that role, to make him an icon never to be forgotten and a weapon of passivism and persecution against an invading force.

Everything about religion is manmade. And we know it to be true. We have stories, their authors credited as those writing in the past tense about a man who existed. No evidence exists to confirm any miracle or any act of God. Formation of church has been a competitive business, and that's what it is, a business. Isn't it funny how the corner stone of Christianity is to "spread the word of the lord" ... in other words, spread our religion. Aggressively they campaigned not in converting the believers of others religions to their own, no they went too far off lands to ingrain the idea of Christianity where no formal religion had established it's self already, like in Africa and Western Europe.

Religious wars have been common throughout history - again, in a world without well-defined borders, aren't we just pre-programmed to always fight in a manner of one unified society against another, in the search of greater power, land and wealth? It still goes on to this day...

So my curiosity is what is religion. My belief is an ancient social movement. My question is why is there religion. My answer is because its part of our human nature, we need to have answers. If we don't understand something, we need a theory, a hypothesis or an answer. We never accept "I don't know". It is the oldest form of science. I also ponder, why do we still have religion? My theory is that so few main stream religions gained so much power, they were more powerful than the states that formed within their territory, where they had a hold, and they maintained massive influence without being a tangible force to fight and a force that had borders far greater than that of any nation and thus commanded the armies of many nations in its defence. I do think that more and more gradually though, in this age of information, that religion has begun to lose its grip. I think younger people more and more take religion less seriously than the generation before and I think more and more there is a separation of religion and state. There are exceptions of course - the extremist nations like USA.

I mean, are we so self centred to first believe that we were the centre of the universe, with all the stars revolving around us, only to discover that we revolve around the star. Do we really think we are that special and important, that the vastness of this universe was created just for us, and we are the only important part of it and it is all really about us and we have our own special God watching over us, reading our thoughts (all 6 billion of us) when we kneel by our beds at night and pray and that he / she hears these thoughts, just from you, and acts upon them? Are we really so obsessed with our own image that we can't consider, for just one second, the possibility that we are just a product of bacteria visited upon a rock millions upon millions of years ago, a planet not unique, but merely capable of sustaining a life form similar to ours (and the earth isn't perfect for sustaining life, we are perfect for the type of life the earth can sustain, as that's how we evolved - if it was colder, we'd have fur, if it was warmer, we'd have scales) and that we are no more relevant to this universe than a single grain of sand is relevant to the grand scale of the Sahara desert?

So, I don't know, as I was writing that, I didn't feel like I was hitting the nail on the head with exactly what I believe, I don't think I was giving great examples to surmise my beliefs, but there you go, you get the idea, that's what I believe.

But the next part is why does "Atheism" exist? What is that? I don't play snooker - is there a word for that? I've never dressed in drag and handed out free hamburgers at a stamp collecting convention either. What are those people called? I don't believe in luck, but in random chance - shouldn't that be labeled too?

I just kind of find it ironic that people of no religion need to be given a name. Again, it's just an ironic little example of how people need to organise information in their mind. Everything needs a definition, everything needs to be labeled and only then can we relax and form an opinion on it. I am of no religious faith, and I include Atheism in that. I don't believe such a word should exist.

Agnostic I can accept, as that is in a way a religion. An agnostic (I believe) is open to the idea of religion and isn't rejecting its absurdness. But as of this moment, subscribes to no religion. I suppose it's reasonable to give that a name, but then, aren't the two very different? Why is there one forum for both "religions"?? MODS, THAT OFFENDS MY RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF BEING AN ATHEIST AND THEREFORE HAVING NO RELIGIOUS BELIEFS!!! :pac:

But my final point is, why is this neatly pigeon holed concept of "atheism" apparently so hated? I get this impression that indeed in the united states at least (as a lot of our media is heavily influenced by USA - and I include websites we browse in that). Isn't that another kind of ironic point? A NEW "religion" to threaten our own? I wont go and fish them out, but I have seen some photo's and videos of basically people giving "atheists and hard time or damaging their property. But I don't get it - what's the problem? I believe everybody should have equal rights, I believe gay people should be allowed to marry and adopt kids, I believe women should be allowed to have an abortion within an early time frame as a last resort of contraception, I believe the single most important scientific endeavor of our time is to pursue genetic and stem cell research for the fields of medicine, it is not "playing God" it is a way to cure just about all known diseases, and heal people with broken spines, grow vital organs...it's essential.

I don't believe in or fear God, but I am a very socially conscious man, I am a charitable man, in fact, one could almost mistake me for a "perfect Christian" in the way I live my life. I am honest, I don't steal or deceive or hurt people, I obey all laws and I don't need a fear of God to do that, I just need to have a conscious about the person who looks back at me each time I look in the mirror. I also don't think people are pre-positioned to do bad, with or without God. We're pretty social creatures, and being a criminal would not appeal to the exact same amount of people who aren't criminals now, even if there was no God. So where does this hatred of so called atheists come from? And does the tag atheist in it's self just give a blanket or label by which people know how to discriminate? I think people confuse (and have throughout history) being "Godless" as a bad or evil thing, yet the most terrible things in history have all been closely related to matters of religion and not non-religion...

I don't know, I guess I just spewed the contents of my brain out there, don't know if it was a rant or a discussion starter or getting some points off my chest, as it's not something I ever really discuss in "the real world" as I don't think it's important, but I suppose since there's a place to discuss this kind of stuff, it would be interesting to bounce some ideas and concepts around.

If you got this far, thanks for reading