lpetrich

And let us forget that no one religion has a monopoly on the concept of an afterlife. Let us not forget what Islam states that virtuous Muslim men will get in the next world.

And there are concepts of an afterlife that are essentially independent of most forms of religion, such as ghosts.

Goliath

woodchuck,

You have no idea what atheism is. Atheism is no more a world view than it is a bag of rotten apples. Atheism is absolutely nothing more than the lack of belief that any gods exist.

Sincerely,

Goliath

lisarea

This is not entirely true. I believe a number of things I can't support with clear factual evidence--from physical concepts that I accept based on authoritative hearsay rather than personal research and first-hand evidence, to personal theories based on what I think are plausible explanations for various phenomena. The difference between these and religion, however, is that I am open-minded about them. It would be no great life-changing loss for me to discover, for example, that I'd misunderstood some aspect of physics, or if I were to discover that one of my theories were incorrect.

My beliefs are changeable as I learn new things or examine my beliefs. My understanding of the world is dynamic and ever-growing, and it is more so because I don't have a single, faith-based belief system into which I have to retrofit every new thing I learn.

I find no solace or greater meaning in the idea that the world and everything in it was created by some invisible sentient superentity who is playing some sort of spectral strategy game with us as pawns; and frankly, I have a very hard time imagining how anyone finds this idea comforting or even remotely plausible.

One of the primary differences between theism and atheism seems to be some concept of romance, for lack of a better word. I recognize the value of human life, I respect and cherish human thought and cooperation. I just don't believe that there is a supernatural element to it. I don't completely reject that there are likely many natural phenomena we have yet to articulate.

But religion seems to speak to some human need for human behaviors and emotions to be inexplicable. Does the fact that I attribute emotional bonds to physical processes in the brain make them any less real? Does the fact that I accept human life as finite make it less valuable?

The simple fact that I accept that there are scientific and evolutionary bases for my emotional bonds doesn't mean that I reject or devalue those bonds, and the simple fact that I believe that human life is finite doesn't mean that I reject the idea that our influence lives on after our death. The fact that I don't get to stay and watch doesn't mean that I don't care if the world goes on after I die.

I prefer to determine my own value according to my deeds. There is far too much importance placed on unfounded self-esteem nowadays. If I do nothing with my life but consume resources and act selfishly, why should I feel valuable? I am valuable because I contribute to society by raising my child to be kind and tolerant, by being a good friend and helping others, and by doing good work and contributing to the cultural landscape in what ways I can. Everyone has different abilities and potential for contributing to society, and it is up to each individual to find theirs.

Maybe our fluctuating moods serve a purpose. Maybe, when we're feeling worthless and unimportant, it should compel us to do something about it--reexamine our goals and our priorities and get to work doing something worthwhile with our time.

Of course, many people suffer from a pathological sense of worthlessness, and that's something that should probably be addressed by mental health professionals, rather than by magical thinking.

[ October 20, 2002: Message edited by: lisarea ]</p>

Corgan Sow

Why add God to life, why not remove God from life.

The problem is anything, my problem is, how do we know if there is God?

Now, I know allot of you want to argue that what I just said of Atheism is logical truth, not philosophy- but your wrong because it is philosophy- its the philosophy you embrace and in looking at reality, its the conclusion you come to. It can't be proven empirically, and if it can, it hasn't yet, therefore, if thats what you believe, you believe a philosophy that is not proven true by science. Atheism is a philosophy.

There is probable truth, but as a former Christian and Zen Buddhist, I don't even know if I can label myself as agnostic. Christianity and theism is no different. It is philosophy.

In my worldview, God created the world with a purpose far better and bigger than we could ever imagine. The world exists because of God, we live because of God, without God we have nothing.

And forgive me, this is that hypocrisy because a Christian can define something is not proven while an atheist is rebuked because he/she is not obliged to believe in that.

My meaning is in God, because only He understands my value. Since this has not been empirically proven, I will say this is my philosophy that I embrace because when I look at reality it logically points to God. Though for me this is not a contradiction, because I do not require empirical evidence for all things in life, because I believe that there is more than nature, and that science cannot prove everything, for science is limited to only test the physical.

I believe only that I should not be punished in afterlife for something I'm not certain, or my human fallacy which your God gave me, decides what's best. For me, I'm nor responsible for my judgment because I was brought here without my consent.

Our human concept of value is limited, but only God knows the true value of a human. Look at us- apart from God we think we're only worth this quick life as you guys have expressed on this thread, but in God's eyes we are intrinsically worth it to be kept alive for all of eternity.

Good for you. Unfortunately, it is laughable that in your God's eyes, some people still deserve to be punished for eternity.

Do you see why Christianity, why not atheism? In God I have a value beyond my comprehenssion, in atheism I can only determine my own value by my own limited capabilities- and my valuation of myself flucuates with my emotions and my experiences.

I only believe to make the best out of my limited capabilities and what faith brought me forth - whether I like it or not.

Bree

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

woodchuck

Goliath
[I'm going to forewarn you before I begin ranting, that this post is going to be me ventilating, much like you did- this isn't aimed directly at you goliath because I don't know you, I'm just commenting on what I've seen during my time on this site]

Athesists have a worldview-not because they're athesists, but because they are people, and people have worldviews. If I understand correctly, athesim is not just disbelief, it's complete rejection of belief. You've decided that no matter what, you will never believe in God because you are fully convinced that he does not exist. This view in itself will have a drastic effect on your worldview, which will be very similar to most other atheists.

You atheists seem to hate letting peolple call atheism your worldview, but I don't think it's because atheism is not a worldview, it's because it makes it sound too close to another belief system. You've convinced yourself that your view is not a view, it is the rational educated truth- and while the rest of us lower life forms are floating around like idiots believing in foolish things like a Creator, your highly enlightened and superevolved minds have surpassed our schitzophrenic brains.

Your disbelief is a belief, not just a disbelief. You believe that there is no God, you don't KNOW that there is no God. The center of the atheist religion is nothing instead of God- all scientific evidence originated at nothing, everything evolved from nothing, therefore you base all of your morality and your opinions and your views on the nothingness of life. You are NOT unbiased, you are NOT thinking FREELY, you are NOT OPEN MINDED. You have a system of beliefs that have closed your mind to all possibilities outside of the BELIEFS you cling to.

I WAS an atheist before I met Christ, when I met Christ my worldview changed drastically.

The difference is is that I met Christ, and therefore, personally, I am accountable to that fact in my life that my worldview is bound to- you on the other hand have not met nothing face to face, you have chosen to embrace nothing and reject all else. Your worldview is not objective, your worldview is subjective because you have caged yourself in a belief.

I will not object to you calling my belief in Christ merely a belief- but if that is the case we are in the same boat. We have both chosen to live life with a central belief- mine Christ, yours nothing. It is not the way you make it sound.

I know it's cliche, but I'll go ahead and say it. Atheism does take faith. Faith is easiest when you've staked everything on one thing- and in athesim you've done just that, just as I have in Christianity. You now must put your faith in the nothing you have embraced, and commit to make sure every thing factual is filtered through your nothing worldview.

Atheism is utterly arrogant, and it is covered by this facade of neutrality and fairness and open mindedness that is nothing more than a BAG OF ROTTEN APPLES. Atheism is a CLOSED MINDED SET OF BELIEFS at the center of who a person is, and chooses to be.

Atheism is not in any way becoming open to truth, it is instead a creation of your own truth, just as I am so often accused around here.

Ok I could say so much more but I´d just go in circles and I'm already interested in seeing the responses to this...

Once again goliath. Im not trying to put you down, but from my point of view you are wrong. Tell me your worldview if it is not atheism.
-eef the woodchucky bizznatch. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Hobbs

Well, based on your ridiculous mischaracterization of me and other atheists I know, you obviously were never a true atheist.

Seriously, though, is that how you labeled yourself before you "met Christ"? Did you really call yourself an atheist, and tell others you were an atheist? Can you give us names of contacts of people who knew you before you met Christ who can verify that you publicly identified yourself as an atheist then?

As someone who was a born-again, bible-believing Christian (as many witnesses can testify) until I realized that it was all just how I had been taught by parents and preachers and sunday-school teachers to interpret and understand my experiences, and realized that other interpretations were more plausible and more consistent with the evidence, I do not at all recognize myself in your characterization of atheists. It is certainly not the case that "I've decided that no matter what, I will never believe in God because I am fully convinced that he does not exist." I am convinced that, based on the evidence I have seen, there is insufficient reason to conclude that there is a God outside of his (or, their) believers' minds. But there are plenty of things that, if true, could convince me otherwise. If only one version of one religion could change people's lives, that would be good evidence that there is at least something to it; but I know Protestants of various types, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists who have all been changed by their beliefs. Obviously, religious beliefs do not have to be true to be effective; they need only be truly believed. Or, if more people really were changed in more fundamental ways by finding religion. Before I dropped out of Christianity, a family member "found Christ" and believed that he had been changed radically by the experience; I had to admit, though, that though there were changes, they were in reality far from as radical as he seemed to believe of himself, and that this was true in far more cases than I cared to have to admit. If the Bible really were completely consistent with itself and with historical and scientific evidence (especially if the authors could not have known of such evidence at the time without divine help), that would be very good evidence in favor of Christian claims of its divine origin; but, though I used to believe that of the Bible, on more closer examination I had to admit that the evidence indicates otherwise. I certainly can be convinced that atheism isn't true, and if it is false I truly do want to find that out. I suspect you would rather believe that atheists refuse to be convinced otherwise, since that makes it easier for believers to deal with the fact that we exist in spite of the "evidence" presented to us.

I truly and deeply believed that I had "met Christ," but honesty forced me to admit that others truly believed they had met Allah, Vishnu, or all sorts of other alleged divine characters. I had to conclude that we had all just learned various ways to interpret our own experiences of finding life meaningful for us. The experiences are real; having had them I cannot deny that. It's all the various ways people of various religions interpret and understand those experiences that I disagree with.

And I've found that, for me anyway, it takes a lot more humility to be an atheist than to believe that The God Of The Universe takes a special interest in even the tiniest of details in my life. I find Christians (myself included back when I was one), or True Believers of any stripe, to typically be the more arrogant ones (even though I would never have admitted or even recognized that at the time). I believed that atheists must be arrogant because they refused to admit what was so obvious to me, or to submit to a God who agreed with me on all matters of theology, morality, politics, etc (can you point out a theist who claims to disagree with God about any of these points? Or am I right to conclude that theists have deified their own versions of what an ideal person should be and call it "God"?).

Besides, if it is true to say to an atheist that "You have a system of beliefs that have closed your mind to all possibilities outside of the BELIEFS you cling to," then how, if you really were an atheist, could you have changed your mind? Another question: is there anything that could change your mind now, and convince you that Christianity isn't true, or are you as closed-minded as you accuse atheists of being?

You said that "You atheists seem to hate letting people call atheism your worldview, but I don't think it's because atheism is not a worldview, it's because it makes it sound too close to another belief system." Once again, atheism is not a worldview. All it is is a lack of belief in a God, or a belief that there is not a God. That does, of course, rule out many possible worldviews (namely, all those that claim there is a God), but there are many other worldviews consistent with atheism, and atheism on its own does not necessarily entail, and falls far short of constituting, any of the possible worldviews consistent with a lack of a belief in a God. Unlike many Christians believe, neither nihilism nor existentialism is entailed by atheism (there are plenty of atheists, including me, who are neither nihilists nor existentialists). Nor for that matter is either ruled out by theism (there have been many theistic existentialists, and even a few theistic nihilists).

I moved beyond Christianity primarily because I found Chrisitanity to be too narrow a worldview to encompass the world I see. I discarded theism because I found what I believe to be better ways to interpret and understand the experiences I used to understand as experiences of God.

K

woodchuck:

This is absolutely untrue. I will believe in God as soon as there is verifiable evidence that He exists. Based on the current evidence, I am convinced that He does not exist. But if some real evidence ever does surface, I'll evaluate it skeptically and then make a decision on whether that evidence really does support the existance of God. If I find that it does, I will be a believer.

I do hold a belief in this area, though. Just as the sun rising every day has given me a belief that it will rise tomorrow, the lack of evidence for the existence of God for thousands of years has given me a belief that none will show up tomorrow.

bluefugue

Rather, speaking for myself and other weak atheists (I do not presume to speak for strong atheists, as I am not one), our provisional best guess is that nothing resembling the gods of mainstream religions actually exists. Just as our provisional best guess is that fairies, elves, Santa, etc., don't exist. You know the drill...

You are absolutely correct that I don't *know* that there is no God. I also don't *know* that there isn't a gigantic fourteen-legged invisible weightless cannibalistic tardigrade living six inches to the left of my nose. But I admit I go about my life under the provisional assumption that there isn't a gigantic fourteen-legged invisible weightless cannibalistic tardigrade living six inches to the left of my nose.

Why are these the only two options? For my part, I consider the universe to be very far from nothing! In fact it is full of all sorts of things the existence of which is difficult for me to deny (especially when I bump into them, or am bitten by them).

What scientist has ever claimed, or provided evidence for the claim, that everything comes from nothing? And how can one base morality and opinions on "the nothingness of life" when life is evidently chock full of *things*, glorious things? I base my morality on all sorts of things -- to name just one, I base my social behavior in part on a desire not to get punched in the face.

I don't think anyone is absolutely open minded, or absolutely unbiased, but we do the best we can with what we've got.

Are a "belief" and an "absence of belief" both inevitably beliefs? Is there no difference between "believing in something" and "not believing in something"? Is your absence of belief in Zeus, fairies, Vishnu, and hobbits just a series of beliefs that you cling to? If I don't believe that there is a Green Three-Headed Snoo orbiting the moon Europa, does that mean the same thing as that I "cling to a belief" that there is *no* Green Three-Headed Snoo orbiting the moon Europa?

Maybe, but so what?

Hobbs

When I say I am right and you are wrong, that is not arrogance. When YOU say that you are right and I am wrong, that is arrogance.