Atheists: In the fewest words possible, could you tell me why you do not believe in God?
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ANSWERS: 3
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I’m unaffected by peer pressure and religious delusions.
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How can one believe in something they cant see or something which cannot be demonstraighted . Shall we talk about peadophile priests lots of church people lie and cover up thier activitys.
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bostjan the adequate 🥉 1. I suppose a good theist would say "faith," but, I understand that your point is that you would tend to be skeptical of anything that is defined in such a way as to be impossible to prove or disprove (unfalsifiable). 2. As frustrating as it is that people abuse their authority in the name of whatever, I think it's a red herring in terms of the existence of God, unless you are saying something to the effect of "How could a benevolent God exist and allow monsters to get away with being monsters because they do their horrific deeds in His name?" And I think that's a caveat to a greater point that I believe that the existence of a benevolent God is self-contradictory to virtually all evidence. Maybe there is, instead, some sort of apathetic or antagonistic God, but, then why believe that without any evidence to suggest it? -
Army Veteran My best argument would be that it's difficult to explain away the complexity of cells needed in the right combination to create life, mainly when the same formula existed long before anyone knew what medical science was.
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I'm not an atheist, but was for many years, a militant one at that, who didn't just believe there wasn't a God, but knew there wasn't a God. Being an atheist made me feel superior to theists, I believed them illogical, and I believed I could free them from the brainwashing. However, one day I had an experience that changed me. Really, my quest was for truth, and so I decided to put the same spotlight on everything including atheism, as I had religion. And this is where atheism came unstuck. Atheists are more than just non believers, they have beliefs in science, and it is these arguments they resort to in debate. Firstly, what I hadn't realised is that life had no objective meaning as an atheist. We are a result of a random event. So I found myself a hypocrite, because here i was calling theists delusional, and yet to remain an atheist, I had to hold on to a delusion, which was "my life had meaning, in a world without meaning.", It's only fair to say in a subjective way that my life has meaning, but objectively, in the bigger scheme of things, in reality, a life cannot. It doesn't matter if I'm a surgeon, a charity worker, a murderer, a rapist, at the end of it all, it results in ZERO. And that applies for everyone, and their offspring, despite 1+2+4+7+12+ 100+145+=0 And this conclusion goes completely against human experience, rarely is this world does anyone do anything for no purpose or meaning,. unless a meaning gene prevents us from realising the hopelessness. Even humans beings are material, driven by genes, chemicals and neurons, there is no ghost in the machine, to say how life is awe inspiring and worth living, there is no one overseeing life and saying this, only us who again are deluding ourselves that this is the case. And finally, atheism came about through what most think was Charles Darwin in his discovery of evolution, this isn't true, it was his grandfather Erasmus Darwin who wrote Zoology, and was a 33rd degree freemason, and part of the Luna Society, which became The Royal Society. These groups were obsessed with superior races, getting rid of what they classed as the inferior, especially the commoners, Darwin himself described the black man as the closest relative to the ape, and the Irish as breeding like rabbits, but the group relied on War, Disease, and poverty to keep the balance, and reduce population growth, which was even an obsession back then. After all Origin of the Species, was called Origin of the Species by means of Natural selection, or the preservation of the FAVOURED RACES in the struggle for life. Thomas Darwin was Darwin's bulldog, he pushed the theory, his grandson was Aldous Huxley who wrote A Brave New World, and his student was Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell), who wrote 1984 (big brother). Aldous Huxley's brother was Julian Huxley a keen eugenicist and president of the British Eugenics Society. And when you follow influential people, the pattern continues. Eugenics is the danger of atheism or nihilism, which it is in it's honest form However, oddly, Freemasons believe in the Great Work, and in a mystic sense some practice Kabbalah, and Luciferianism and Gnosticism, but mainly a form of alchemy, but not with chemicals but transformation of man himself, but this is only in the higher degrees, so where did atheism come in and why? Nietzsche was said to be a nihilist, however, before his death he thought he was the god Dionysus, and this particular god is seen in the "occult rites." But then that's a whole story in of itself, but mysticism and the occult still exist today, with the Rosicrucian's, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Freemasons, Theosophy Knights of Malta etc. And of course if life has no objective meaning then it has no objective morality, we can only argue indifference, which is also a danger of atheism. Of course when atheists say "they don't believe in God because they can't see him," well they can't see quantum field theory either, and when you really start looking at this interesting topic and it's speaks of an ever present non zero energy, in the vacuum state, and in modern physics all forces and associated particles are field-like, and their manifestation is a result of excitations of the respective quantum field, not only to I find that exciting, but funny in light of the atheists question. Even Richard Dawkins will tell you the world comes from NOTHING, and that NOTHING is something. And that....is as short as this answer gets, hope you made it, but not too bothered if you didn't.
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bostjan the adequate 🥉
"Atheists are more than just non believers, they have beliefs in science" - do theists not believe in science?! Do you mean as a source of information about the supernatural or whatever? I would tend to think that the typical atheist just doesn't believe those things really matter. "It's only fair to say in a subjective way that my life has meaning, but objectively, in the bigger scheme of things, in reality, a life cannot have meaning in a random universe, where we are determined by our chemicals and neurons, and where this will all end at some point, for nothing." - This is where I think both have problems. In the lens of atheism, maybe meaning is a temporally locative thing. Probably, to a typical atheist, the meaning of things in the distant future really do have no importance. And, likewise, introducing a new variable in the form of God, doesn't necessarily solve the problem, right? God would have to be a certain kind of entity for there to be eternal consequences of misdeeds. The God of Christianity is that way, but oddly, not the God of Judaism (whence the foundations of Christianity were formed). And, ironically, if God forgives every misdeed through belief in Him or His son, then, ultimately, those misdeeds do indeed have no permanent consequences, right? "And this conclusion goes completely against human experience, rarely is this world does anyone do anything for no purpose or meaning" - depends on your experience. Go to a children's hospital's end of life ward and tell me that you have no doubt that everything happens for a reason. Go to Syria or Ukraine and visit the families who have had their children taken from them by the war and tell me that you have no doubt that everything happens for a reason. As for Darwin, I don't think you are at all correct. Atheism predates Christianity, as it was argued by the ancient Greeks. As for quantum fields, they are used to explain phenomena that are observable and repeatable. Quantum Field Theory is testable and has been tested many times. Maybe someday we will come up with a better theory of how subatomic particles interact or how electrons can exist as a point, but, for now, I don't think religion has anything to say about these questions (rightly so), since it's well outside their scope. -
Creamcrackered
I said "atheists" are more than non believers, not theists, you've misquoted me. And what I meant is atheists use scientist to dispute religion as with the big bang theory etc. Theists believe in science, but also question it according to their belief from my experience as atheist anyway. Christianity was started by Jews. Jesus was a Jew and his followers Jewish. God only forgives sin through Jesus Christ, to believe in Christ is to die on the cross with Christ, (from a "self" perspective) and be reborn in the spirit like Christ. The first Adam was of the earth and earthly nature, but the second Adam (Christ) was born of the spirit of God. So man then becomes both earth and spirit, it's the mystery of the Bible revealed. Christ is the bridge back to the Father, who will bring Christ and his flock to all and be in ALL, the return to Eden when man was united with God but had the freewill to choose his own separation. . As James states a man may not be forgiven by his deeds, but his deeds show he believes in Christ. Jesus had the fullness of the Father, and since man IS the temple of God's Holy spirit, then how he behaves will change, for the goal is to be like Christ, Holy. In stating that man acts with purpose, he gets up goes to work, has a family supports his family, every person sees life with purpose, take the example of the child in the children's ward, many children die in children wards everyday, many die of starvation, and man then has to accept that they die and live for no purpose just like the parent, but that's not how man lives. In these scenarios I always think to myself "Is this is good as it gets? This this the best man could do? Spend 90% of his life working and at school, having a few years retirement and then dies? Where's the "life" in that? We call this living, and we pacifly accept it. People in countries still have no water, we have corrupt politicians, VIP paedophille rings. While all the time focused on the religious who do believe in a purpose, and do believe there child will go somewhere when they die. That this material realm is not the only thing that exists, and the mystics all agree on this point as well, including Jews who follow Kabbalah, David Bowie sung a song from Malkuth (earth) to Kether. And most celebrities practice this. Where does atheism predate Darwin? There was no alternative arguement to the creation of the universe. Plato and Socrates believed in deity, they were both part of the mystery schools. Quantum is mainly mathematics, and if the basis of the theory is off, the whole thing is incorrect, the big bang theory has already been challenged. There are new discoveries all the time overthrowing old ideas. Actually religion has a lot to say, because religious books were written as spiritual tools, not to poke around the universe, king Solomon's temple was designed on a man lying on the floor, as also described in revelations. Man goes through the outward ritual when entering the church and taking holy communion from the priest. He never gets to learn the inner ritual in most circumstances. Finally, Tesla said the universe is made up of energy and vibration, and the Bible says The spirit hovered over the void, and God said "Let there be light." It just seems like heavens have become multiverses, angels and demons have become extra terrestrials, God has become the singularity. But overall the Bible including the Torah contained mysteries, which is why it cannot be read from a literal or merely rational basis, when man reads it from the spirit, as a teaching, it makes more sense. Same reason parables are always better at revealing truth. -
bostjan the adequate 🥉
Weird that you say I misquoted you, I literally copied and pasted what you said into quotes. But I understand what you were saying now. And I don't think that science itself has any intent at all to explain anything beyond its scope, which is the observable universe - past, present, predicting the future. The big bang is the moment at which science becomes blind. So, to ask a proper scientist, "what happened before the big bang," the only correct answer is "I don't know." And science will never answer this. Religions tend to try to answer this in order to assign some purpose to our lives other than that which is materially evident. But I think that it is possible for people to gain some surface understanding of science and then apply that toward the traditional beliefs of their culture to poke holes. And, in the case of Christianity, science and logic can often become the enemy of scriptures. But I think that's all aside from the main argument as to whether or not there is a God or gods. I know that it's unorthodox for a Christian to not believe that the Bible is perfect in every way, but it certainly is possible. And also if someone we to disprove every word of the Bible, it would not automatically mean that there is no God, for example, maybe the Quaran is correct or the Vedas or some ancient carving on Easter Island holds the cosmic truth. But this poking of holes in scriptures leads into your point about James. James (chapter 2) says that faith alone is not enough to save a person, but Ephesians (chapter 2) says that faith is all you need to be saved. There are several examples of such that seem quite contradictory. I'm sure you have some explanation for it, but, honestly, if any classroom textbook were this contradictory, it would be removed from the curriculum. As for whether life matters or not, I, personally, would tend to believe that the present time is enough. When you die, you are gone, but so long as you are considering it, you are not gone, so make the best of what you have while you still have it. Someday it will all be gone. Working in order to reach a goal of retirement is dumb any way you look at it. And, so, you are honestly unaware of ancient Greeks who were atheists? Epicurus was the most well known, but he was heavily influenced by Pyrrho and the school of Cynicism that came before him. Anyway, this was all centuries before Christianity, and is so old that the advent of these philosophies is not recorded in any surviving document. As for Darwin, I think Christians have a tendency, for whatever reason, to pick on evolution as though it directly challenges their beliefs, but I'd again tell you that you could potentially have both, as long as you don't take the creation story of Genesis to be literal. And, if you DO take it to be literal, then you already have problems between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, since it retells the story again, for unknown reasons, and the exact details are contradictory. But why does a specific creation story have to be so strongly connected with a deity? If, hypothetically, it could be 100% proven that the creation story of Adam and Eve was a fictional parable, would that necessarily mean that Jesus never existed? That seems like a weird way to connect values to me, as I don't see any reason why the creation story couldn't be just a fable (a lesson for teaching that didn't actually happen but still shares an important moral). -
Creamcrackered
This is what I wrote "Atheists are more than just non believers, they have beliefs in science, and it is these arguments they resort to in debate." This is what you quote "theists are more than just non believers, they have beliefs in science, and it is these arguments they resort to in debate." Hence, the misquote. I didn't say science does anything else. And as I said religion is a spiritual tool. So one deals with what's outside or the material, and one deals with the inner workings of man. James and Paul do not contradict each other, see Gal 5:6, which brings the two in harmony. Paul uses the words “faith through love,” hence, if anyone is to have faith in God, then love leading to good works will surely follow. The bible isn’t contradictory, but many verses are tied along with other verses, if you’ve ever been on a bible verses website, it will offer similar verses to support what is being used. The same as being taught in a classroom you use many references to support one viewpoint. So you do believe that life has no meaning, and so one should enjoy it while it lasts, and there is my question, are you enjoying it, are we enjoying it? Most of them spent at work, often for most at jobs that they hate, only to look forward to the summer holiday each year, before back to work, year in year out, send the children to school, so they can be subjected to the same lives we have, learn to buy things to make us happy, or take away the monotony, and stress, a new table, a new sofa, a bigger TV, our lives governed by an invisible economy, created by them, spend spend spend, save, save, save. Why can’t we work less hours? 50 years ago people worked less, the woman didn’t have to go to work, they could stay home and look after the children and the dad could support them, but not anymore, both parents have to work, and the children spend more time in the hands of the state. Where’s the freedom in this? See I thought, if this was our one life, people would be questioning this as well, and seeking to change it. Clearly not, this is what people want to do with their one life, that means nothing....continued... -
Creamcrackered
continued...Epicurus taught that “Pleasure is the principle and end to a happy life.” And to avoid pain. He did believe in the gods, but believed they ignored the doings of mankind. I didn’t just chose Darwin because of the big bang, I chose him to also demonstrate he was for eugenics, as part of the X-club, this is why he said what he did about the commoners, blacks and irish, and this is why he intermarried Emma Wedgwood the daughter of an uncle on his mother’s side, as the group believed intermarriage would create greater intelligence. And as I said, without objective morality, then eugenics is a danger, it already is. The Jewish reason for the 2 different stories in Genesis is that chapter one was to reconcile any conflicting views towards the natural world, as on reading it, it opens with it majestic portrait of the creation of the cosmos. So in an act of hindsight appended a second account of creation, one, in the form of chapter two–which begins more narrowly with the history of the earth and its first human inhabitants to demonstrate graphically that evil springs from human weakness. All else is really quite secondary. This was to avoid any tendency towards paganism and nature worship, so idolatry wasn’t a problem. The reason parables are used, is in order to reveal truth. There are different truths, for example, your name on here is bostjan. The sky is blue. As I said, you are looking at the bible as a reason for existence, which it is in a way, but it speaks to the inner man, it’s a spiritual tool, and this is why it is connected with Deity. Here are a three parables that point to truth. The Devil and his friend went for a walk, they saw a man ahead of them stoop down and pick up something from the ground. “What did the man find? Asked the friend. “A piece of truth” said the devil. “Doesn’t that disturb you?” asked the friend? “No,” said the devil “I shall let him make a belief out of it.” Second story - A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles and stopped on the edge of the sea. It was fascinated by the moving liquid mass, so unlike anything it had seen before. “What are you?” said the salt doll. “Come on in and see,” said the sea with a smile. So the doll waded in. The further it went the more it dissolved till there was only a pinch left. Before that last bit dissolved, the doll exclaimed in wonder, “Now I know what I am?” third- I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:5 -
bostjan the adequate 🥉
Gal 5:6 is about circumcision. Not sure that proves any points about how atheists take verses out of context! Eph 2:8-9 clearly says that we are saved by faith alone and not by works, and James 2:24 clearly states that we are not saved by faith alone. Heb 8:7, on the other hand, proves that God's covenants are not perfect. If God's covenants are not perfect, then God's words cannot be identically perfect. If God's words are not identically perfect, then the Bible is not necessarily perfect. I could make an entire essay of all of the contradictions in the Bible, many of them very clear, but nitpicky, and others much less clear, but more fundamentally important at a high level. But, again, it doesn't matter. Those who insist that the Bible is literally correct about everything do not represent the bulk of theists by any stretch, so that discussion is a red herring for this topic. Did I say that I believed that life has no meaning? I don't think that what I said could be fairly paraphrased that way, but maybe through the lens of your own belief system, what I said jibes with that paraphrase. If that's the case, I don't fault you for it, but I'd just stress to you that your characterization is not how I see things, and perhaps a believer in the literal word-for-word truth of the Bible would face the same logical problems that you believe my philosophy has for the same reasons, whereas my belief doesn't, since I don't place any importance at all on the eventual outcome of the end of eternity or whatever similar concept is the cornerstone of your beliefs. I happen to spend time doing things I love doing: I love my job, I love helping people, I love trying to understand philosophy, so am I less motivated to do these things than someone with a vicar pointing a metaphorical gun to their heads with the threat of "do these things or else suffer eternal torment?" I don't get it. -
bostjan the adequate 🥉
Epicurus taught that death is the end- no afterlife, so whether there were gods or not, it didn't make any difference. I suppose you are correct that such would make him not an atheist, but the fact that he wrote about atheism should be better than a hint that atheism existed prior to his time. I'm not sure why the ad hominem attacks against Charles Darwin, but sure, he was a bad guy. Again, there is no reason to believe that he is the prophet of atheism or anything even roughly equivalent. He spent much of his life as a religious man, and, according to many accounts, died as a religious man. He even said "I have never been an atheist" in his memoir. But, either way, I don't see how it's relevant. Plenty of religious people and irreligious people alike have done horrible things. One of the main sources of friction between him and the church was that he denied that the Bible was literal history. I think anyone who actually reads the Bible from start to finish has to grapple with that, as we were discussing already, the first chapter of the very first book of the Bible tells an account of creation and then the very next chapter tells a notably different account of the same thing, such that the details of both cannot be literally historically true. So, in that sense, Darwin was correct. If he's a racist and a eugenicist and a jerk, that's awful. But I could pick a random pope from history and start picking away, but I won't, because I don't see how it'd be relevant. -
Creamcrackered
Chapter 5 Is about freedom in Christ, and that in faith, man acts through love, Christ is love. It uses circumcision as an example, but the whole context is in the whole of chapter 5, which includes life by the spirit, it is using circumcision as an act of law. Again, you have to read the whole of hebrews chapter 8, which states that God found fought with the people, not the covenant, “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. 10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I agree some Christians are literaists, but even Paul demonstrates that Gal 4: 28-29 that Ishmael represents the believer’s first birth (the flesh) and Isaac represents the second birth (the Spirit). Right, what I said is that life can have no "objective" meaning to an atheist who believes in materialism. For the examples I gave in my response. If you believe otherwise, then you are deluding yourself, and that was my point. Atheists accuse theists of being delusion, but an atheist has to delude themselves into believing their life has meaning in a random universe that will begin and end for NO reason. And you again said so yourself, you believe your life has meaning in the present, and that is deluding yourself, you are using subjective meaning because you are alive, but in reality in a meaningless universe, it can have no OBJECTIVE meaning. I'm not disputing you don't love your life, or don't feel useful, all I'm saying is that the atheist accusing the theist of being delusion for wanting to be believe in a eternal life, when an atheist has to delude themselves that their life has meaning and purpose in a meaningless world. And in a world there is no objective right or wrong, just indifference. That's all I said. I know this because I was an atheist. a true atheist is a nilihist, because that is reality, NO MEANING to our existence. There is no ghost in the machine, or onlooker saying how great it is. I agree the church, can only outwardly enforce, they are not encouraging an inward change from within, which is what scripture is. Atheism means without a belief in god, Epicurus believed in gods, but that they had no interest in humans. He also believed in the purely pleasure principle. That's what those who were influenced by the Dionysus cults (Dionysus being the god of pleasure and wine), adhered to. You deem my argument regarding Darwin fallacious, which parts, because you must know very little about Darwin himself, or even the books he wrote besides Origin of the Species through natural selection or the preservation of the favoured races in the struggle for life, such as the Descent of Man. Well you are the first atheist to not argue that Darwin wasn't an atheist I give you that. He was for eugenics though, the X-club demonstrates this, and the followers of those, and their families such as Julian Huxley etc. I agree with you about the bible, I don't believe it is completely literal, I do believe there is a mystery in there, about mans origins, mans suffering, and the way to over come that, as I say again it's a spiritual tool. Even the Jews took the Zohar from the OT. As I said one chapter, was about the creation fo the universe, the second was make sure the focus was on humanity, not on the creation itself, to avoid paganism. I have no need to protect the pope, or papacy, how people can still go to church after those grotesque acts were revealed is beyond me, including how the nuns treated orphans in Ireland, I had a friend who was one of these. -
bostjan the adequate 🥉
I never said you were delusional. I am NOT Richard Dawkins. I just thought we could have a conversation about it. If the conversation causes you pain, then I will disengage. -
Creamcrackered
No, it doesn't affect me emotionally bostjan64, I know how both sides of the debate go, as I've been on both sides. I don't think much of Dawkins anyway, I know who funds him. I do have two of his books though that I bought many moons ago when I started questioning whether God existed, the God delusion and the Selfish Gene. -
bostjan the adequate 🥉
Ok. So, coming back to how God changed the covenant, how would a perfect God with perfect knowledge (omniscience) of the past, present, and future, make a covenant with the people that would need to be totally revised? To me, that doesn't make any sense. As for Darwin, I know enough about him to know that his morals are generally irrelevant to this topic. Anyway, atheists come in all different sorts, just like theists. Some atheists arrive at atheism as a logical conclusion of skepticism, some through following the teachings of others. Never ran into an atheist who wound up that way because of Darwin, personally, but there's no reason why one doesn't exist out there somewhere. Maybe you can have a discussion with that person about all of this eugenics stuff. Personally, I grew up in a religious household and in a very religious school. I believed everything UNTIL I read the Bible, and then, once I had questions about why the Bible was the way it was, rather than answers, I received only browbeating from my teachers for being curious about it, and that's when I realized that it's all a con. Someone at the cradle of civilization was having trouble controlling the masses from misbehaving, so they threatened about an all-seeing entity who could punish people beyond the grave, and it worked. But as time rolled on, more people questioned it, so the story got more and more convoluted and split into different beliefs, so now we have hundreds of denominations of nearly a dozen main religions all spun off from that, and none of them make any sense to me. -
Creamcrackered
It wasn't totally revised, the Messiah was always predicted. As the bible says, the first Adam was of the flesh, Jesus who was the second Adam was of the spirit. Jesus always needed to come, in order to reunite man with God, as he has to have the holy spirit of God within him, man is the temple. But just like the story of the fall, that to is a choice. Man lost faith in God during the fall, hence this is the way he is to regain it in the redemption, through faith. Personally, I think some ones motives and beliefs are always relevant to their writings, and the reason I brought Darwin up, is because many atheists resort to Darwin's evolution of the species, and other science explanation and writers, but know very little about them, and haven't even read their books. I questioned the bible also, Jesus seemed a pretty cool guy, but his dad seemed a monster. I wasn't brought up in a particularly religious household, never went to church. And yes, when I read the bible I thought it was an absolute bunch of twaddle. I probably read it more than most theists. I believed like you it was a form of control to keep us all passive. Although even today, people are still predominantly passive on the whole society thing and how it runs. I have often wondered if the bible is a plan to depopulate the earth at some point, since at every aeon throughout history, the current ruling nation in vogue, is overthrown for something larger. It would be a good way to brainwash people into acceptance of their death, since it would be expected. I completely get where you are coming from, but I didn't just start believing in this stuff, I couldn't force faith from the outside by praying, or reading the bible, etc. My experience came as an atheist having a debate with a bunch of Christians online funnily enough, they didn't convince me, it was something I said and argued that made me experience something profound, and once that happened I realised that every single question I'd ever asked about God was absurd, and the bible made sense in a way a story tells you something about your past, and current state of being, it knows human nature very well in this mindset. That's all I can say, because atheists have just as much chance of experiencing God simply because they question it, which is better than a Christian that goes through the motions but is never really changed by it. Questioning everything is even better though, not just God.
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