CanoeMan

Well, I'm almost a scientist (that is, I'm studying for a masters in physics right now) and to me, the universe is such a wonderous place that I can't even describe it. Much of it is just *because* it's without a creator.

As we speak, billions of almost imperceptible particles pass through our bodies, without us even noticing. We're orbiting a gigantic nuclear explosion about 90 million miles away with a speed of about 20 miles a second, on a vulcanic rock with only a thin shroud of gas keeping us alive. The size of that explosion (the sun) is so large that the farthest distance man has ever travelled (from the earth to the moon) is just a quarter of its diameter. Every person who ever lived have never been so far away from everyone else that they couldn't easily be fitted inside the sun. In a single snowflake there are enough atoms that if every person on earth took a hundred million of them each, it wouldn't affect the snowflake at all. When something is going fast relative to you, it becomes shorter and heavier and time itself starts going slower for that object.

Can you wiggle your ears? If you can, the muscles you're using to do it are leftover from millions and millions of years ago, from before humans even existed, when we had to be able to point our ears in different direction. Imagine that vast gulf of time between you and when those ears was needed, and you can feel the evidence with your bare hand, right behind your ear.

Does any of this require a creator in order to inspire awe? Is a sunset really more beautiful just because there's a god somewhere that painted it, instead of it being a gigantic ball of burning gas turning red because of Rayleigh scattering?

Someone smarter than me once said that a kid learning to ride a bike is more wonderous that an omnipotent god creating the world. Since the god is omnipotent, everything it does is easy. It doesn't take any effort, it can just snap its fingers and the work is done. But the kid, never having rode a bike before have to struggle and train and work, and finally it have achived something really fucking fantastic: it can do something it could not before. It has learned something, by its own sheer force of will and grit. That's wonderous to me, much more so than a distant god willing everything into existance.

The AntiChris

GRD is a more appropriate forum for this discussion.

Chris (Mod, MF&P)

Preno

But history would indicate that it indeed does, wouldn't it? I mean, all throughout history, there have been people who thought that certain phenomena have no rational explanation and attributed them to the actions of God(s) - from lightning and rain to the creation of new life. And history has shown quite clearly that all those things really do have rational explanation. Science has accurately explained like 99% of everything we once considered supernatural, and I have no reason not to assume that it will not explain the remaining 1%. All throughout history, people who claimed that you can only explain X when you take the supernatural into account were wrong, and people who claimed that you can explain X using science were right. Now that's a pretty strong precedent, isn't it?
And who says atheists are bored with the world? I've been an atheist all my life, and live in a pretty much atheist society, and I don't know anyone who would consider the world "bleak" because there is no God. Really, there is little connection between this kind of pessimism and belief in God.

Queen of Swords

I think the world is a fascinating place and I enjoy living in it. Being an atheist has not left me "cold" or "dead" in my viewpoint, and I find limitless wonders in the world, from microbiology to cosmology. My only regret is that one life may not be long enough to see everything and do everything that I'd like to see and do.

However, I do not believe that there is a god or a higher power or any kind of supernatural being out there, simply because there is no evidence for it. If anyone wants to believe in a Great Cosmic Force that cannot be tested for and/or will not provide evidence for its existence, that's fine by me, but I see no essential difference between this and the idea of a god who plays hide-and-seek with its creations. How do you tell the higher-power-which-cannot-be-tested-for and the nonexistent-product-of-wishful-thinking apart, anyway?

ObiKenobi

Why? On what basis do you make this conclusion? Seems like more like the typical theist misrepresentation of atheism then what atheism really is.

_Naturalist_

I'm an atheist and it doesn't seem cold to me. I feel wonder before the universe even if there are no gods or angels or spirits. Not that I'd know how they would fit into our current understanding of the world anyway?

Ulusaba

I became an agnostic/athiest when I -for the first time- at about your age- sat down ALONE -and read the Bible from cover to cover- no priest, no biblical scholar, no God botherer's around-
and drew my own conclusions as to the authenticity of everything that I read.
I would recommend that you do the same -if you have not already done so.

ps: have you ever looked at skepticsannotatedbible.com ? sums up all the reasons why I stopped believing.

trendkill

I never associated the feeling of the mysterious or numinous with theism/authoritarianism/"a higher power". Doesn't make any intuitive sense to me, and never did, even when I was a theist.

atonal chaotic

The universe is complex, fascinating, and beautiful. And nothing about it requires supernatural powers or supernatural minds to make it complex, fascinating and beautiful. That you think atheism means boredom with the world or seeing the world as bleak, suggests there are problems with your basic assumptions.

David Vestal

How CAN I be an atheist? I ceased to believe, that's how. Belief isn't voluntary, you know; whether you believe or not isn't a choice. I stopped believing, and thus I became an atheist by definition.

As for atheism being a cold, dead outlook, well, it isn't. Thinking that everything boils down to a materialistic explanation in no way detracts from the beauty or wonder that we subjectively find in nature. My life is happier than it was when I was a theist, so I rebut from personal experience your idea that atheism is cold.