He is more of an agnostic if you ask me. Atheist says definitively there is no super nature and things happens randomly.
My point is that facts, even the ones that are scientific, are much more shaky than the exactitude which the mention of science and scientists themselves want you to believe. I don't see how you don't get the ridculousness of scientic facts. Seeing, in this case, does not equate to knowing. It just makes the seer feel all warm an fuzzy inside, because they have something they feel that they can touch. Also, God and Religion are and can be two different things altogether. But god itself, meaning creator, remains the same. That is the fact I am referring to. There are only two possibilities in this: god exists or he does not exist. The favor of believe in the personailites attributed to god matter not. Understand?
God has no need to be created. He's always been, you see God exists outside of time. Without the dimension of time, there is no cause and effect, and all things that could exist in such a realm would have no need of being caused, but would have always existed. However, since God created time, cause and effect would never apply to His existence. I don't frown upon what you believe, certainly it's your mind. I just think that once a person is presented with all the evidence of God's existence, it's extrememly difficult to deny that he does exsist. because hell is the last place I would ever want anyone to be, regardless of reason.
And why would this omnipotent, omnipresent being have two arms, two legs, and two eyes? And hair? I mean, what use would such a being have for eyes, legs, arms, and hair? But science can't explain anything either. In fact, no matter how you look at reality - it doesn't make sense: 1. If god created everything, what was god doing before creation? Sitting on his butt being lazy? Where did this god come from? 2. If everything was just from the Big Bang, what cause the big bang? What was there before? If nothing was there before, why did the big bang happen? Where did all this energy come from? 3. If there was a beginning, what was there before the beginning. Doesn't make sense to have a beginning. How did the beginning come into being? 4. If there is no beginning, then time goes back infinitely, but how can that make sense? If you keep going back and back there has to be a beginning. What was the starting point for reality? No matter how you skin, now matter what explanation you give, no matter how many scientific secrets we unlock, no matter what god you believe in or not, no explanation, not scientific nor theological makes any sense. Reality doesn't make sense. It's completely absurd.
Another thing: I could equate knowledge itself as a believe that boarders on the mystisim of an invisible god in this way: Anytime a scientist comes along with a theory of anything he is believing, to a certain extent, that his knowledge is all knowing. It is so because there would be no theory without limiting knowledge and in the same breath as he limits his knowlede, thus discarding other knowledge, in favor of his own, he is also calling his knowledge GOD. How egotistical such a thing, but science gets around that by calling it a theory, but the limiting of knowledge in my mind is scientist calling himself GOD.
Time is merely a measure of change. Of motion. and existence without time is an existence without change, motion, thought....it is a steady state and in many ways dead. As soon as you introduce motion, any kind of change, or any kind of thought - you have in essence introduced time. So if this god, which is timeless - yes, would have always existed, but it would be a god that did not think, did not move, and did not change. At that point, the meaning of "god" becomes semantic. What do you think moved this being - who only existed to "be" - what prompted this being to create time?
Good post. There's thinking for yourself. Thinking through religion. Thinking through SCIENCE. I see the atheistic aspect of basing personal views for for yourself, with just the cutting out the belief in god part. Thats all it really should be. Though I'm looking at the atheistic aspect of basing views along with science. Avanced scientific atheism. Science basically replacing religion, which some atheists tend to do. Then the issue is what do we think of SCIENCE? Can science inspire, give people morals and principles to live by? Does science by itself promote the ethics we need? To me science is so impartial and on-paper it almost totally removes those littles elements in humans called emotion and empathy. The scientific method explains origins and outcomes. It doesnt always help explain if the outcomes are desirable. Science can explain the chemicals which work to create the feeling CALLED desire. Then it also explains how to REMOVE those chemicals. Will the world be ready for atheism and science to take over for religion? We might have to some day. The thing is where will the morals come from? (BTW, I'm atheist turned agnostic.)
Out of context. My background was brought up as a Christian, went to a Christian school, went to Church every Sunday. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to Christianity, obviously less so on other religions. You cannot call me close minded to religion, because up until I was 25 (last year) I went to church every week, and was in a 'Christian' marriage, yada yada. It has only been since I embraced Atheism, and was open about it, that I felt the wrath. That led me to hear other stories of people who have been open about their Atheism and have been made to feel lesser/looked down on/kicked out of their homes, etc. Some more of these stories have been described by posters such as Gakatron on the earlier pages of this thread.
As an atheist I have never felt oppressed or been on the receiving end of excessive grief. I have certainly been the object of poor assumptions as a result and had my share of people telling me I was going to hell, that I was misguided, they knew better, etc. I will say this, though, I have often kept my beliefs to myself with family members or various people because I did not want to deal with the consequences. It is a path of least resistance thing. People will often either feel threatened by me (think I am judging them when I am not) or try to show me how wrong I am and at the end of the day I don't care and don't care to talk about it. As an example my brother-in-law is going through a hard time and is finding all sorts of help in a relationship with God and will tell me all about it. I just keep the conversation one sided on him. Why should I care what he needs and why should I bring up how I don't believe? Of course, I have always thought of my atheism as not a rejection of religion but a fundamental lack of concern or understanding (as in I cannot even fathom believing any of it). I was raised Christian but certainly nothing strict so I never rebelled or anything like that - it is just that nothing ever settled with me. And that includes other religions. I love them all and have tried to learn as much as I can and attend as many different places of worship. But it all ends at intellectual curiosity. So I guess my point is that I don't feel a lot of pushback on a daily basis but that could be because I am not really invested in any viewpoint and because I err on the side of not discussing religion unless I feel a good conversation can result. I also feel that MadMax is a little girl and everyone needs to stop acting as if he is so cool and enlightened. He is a big jerk of a little girl. I want to hold him and pet him and name him George but I do not want to paint his portrait on a gilded panel. And I am pretty sure my kids could take his down. Other than that, he makes me smile with my heart.
Just as a not-so-serious aside. Anyone seen that Family Guy ep. where Meg embraces religion, and tries to convert Brian. Brian in turn declares he's athiest and the whiole family goes nuts at him for not believing some kind of god. Again, not bringing this into the discussion as a serious thing, just thought of it and thought i'd add it as a light addition to a heavy thread. BTW - I guess I knew it might happen, but I really didnt want this thread to turn into a merits of the atheist vs religious argument/debate...it was meant to be about why athiests tend to be thought of as being so stupid by people across all the different religions, who cannot agree amongst themselves on many,many issues.
Community is one of the pillars of Church. I guess it's easy to mark you as a threat that unravels their network (uh oh he ask too many questions..), but I want to believe that a stronger church would welcome you and your doubts. If only to "annoy" you into joining back, but mainly to show you that you'd be loved regardless and for them to grow their community beyond our materially planned intentions. I have a lot of ideals of what a good church should be. Sometimes I wonder if it exists. Mostly I ask myself if I could exist in it.
