Hi guys!
I joined these forums to start up something like this - an "ask an atheist" thread, but i see that this one has recently been started, but has been inactive for a few weeks. I figured that i would simply write in this one then, and offer my insight on atheism.
Ill admit, i like to read, and my initial post is quite lenghty. I have tried taking the questions that has been asked already and given you my answers to them. I will check back regulary and answer any new posts (i just have to find a way to turn on notificatons).
As for general information, i can tell you that my name is Dan, i am 23 years old, and i live in Denmark.
Do you believe there is a God?
No. That is the whole point of being an atheist, you know.
How can you be 100% certain that God doesn't exist?
I can't. Stricktly speaking, i am an agnostic. But i am "so agnostic" that i live my life assuming that god does not exist. I have no reason - at all - to believe in god. There is no argument for him, but plenty against. The things that the bible teach us goes against what we have learned from science, and what we deduct with reason. I think, however, that after so many, thousands of years, if we still dont have a single proof of the existance of a creator, its pretty safe to say that there is none.
Care to brief us a little more on your entire beliefs
I used to pursue christianity in my teens. I was brought up as a christian, although christianity in Denmark is more of a softcore religion - but never the less, as a child, i accepted it as a whole. In the middle of my teens, probably around 15 or 16, i began challenging what i had been taught - not just about religion, but everything in a teenage rebelion. As i defined myself as a person, i decided that knowledge was more important than anything else.
I used to call myself a passive agnostic. The kind of person that doesn't believe in god but doesn't care what other people believe in. In the later years, my views has changed, though, because i see religion more as corrosive than helpfull, in any regard.
Before i buy into something, i want proof. I want a reason for doing something, and i can't just accept blind faith. We dont take pills or get treatment on the hospital because we have faith that it will cure us - science has told us that it will. You wouldn't sniff a line of cocaine on blind faith if someone told you it would give you all the riches in the world. Your reason and the things you have learned tells you that its probably not true, and your blind faith wont help you - in fact, it will be a danger to you - and so in this case you rely on what you know.
There is a staggering amount of science, and just in the last 20 years we have learned more than we have the 200 years before it. We are getting knowledge of the world around us at an astonishing rate, and yet there is one subject that we can't advance on: religion. It is conveniently dictated as "out of the reach of science" as the only thing in this world. It cannot be proven - in fact, the only proof for religion is in the small amounts of scripture (compared to science) and that is contradicted by many, many scientific studies.
Why would you want to be an atheist? Atheism has never given anyone any peace, or joy, or made anyone a better person. True, authentic faith has made even criminals and liars into better people who have peace. Your atheism is incapble of that.
It is not a persons religion that defines his moral boundaries or his mental balance. I am at peace, knowing that there is no god. I am not a bad person. Ill carry the old ladys grocery bags, and ill stop a fight on the streets if i see it.
On the subject of peace and joy, i had a conversation with a friend of mine some months ago. She didn't believe in god, but she said she had to believe that there were more, that when we die we dont just rot in the ground. She said that if this was all she had, she would be very depressed. My response was the excact opposite - if this life is all i have, then i must do everything i can to make the most out of it. On top of that, the mere thought of eternal afterlife is the most depressing thing i can ever think of: The 70ish years i spend on this earth will be a drop in the ocean compared to eternity. All the things i do here, the love i have, the experiences i get, will mean NOTHING in the vast ocean of eternity. I could not treasure waking up in my lovers arms, i could not take pleasure in seeing children laugh, if i knew that these 70 years would be next to nothing, compared to eternity.
Morals do not come from religion. The thought is absurd. By claiming so, you suggest that before Moses came around with the 10 commandmends, people went around killing each other, raping at will, stealing whenever they wished. Surely that was not the case. There are other religions, with different moral rules - do you mean to say that they go around and slaughter each other, just because they haven't heard of chrisianity? Ofcourse not. It is the laws of the community that defines our morals. Long before any religion came about, people realised that you needed a set of rules, and the community would enforce that. Individuals that hurt the tribe will be expelled. Do you really think that murder and such has only been a crime for a few thousand years?
Religion is, in my eyes, trying to take credit for morals. Sure, the scare tactics used by religious advertisers back in the days no doub helped getting people under control - with fear of an eternal time in hell - but it did not create it, nor is it guiding people today. In fact, i would worry a lot of people said they drew their morals from religion. The bible has no shortage of nasty actions, carried out by men, ordered by god. Slaughter, rape, incest, throwing babies at walls, beating kids, stoning innocents, slavery and so on.
Okay, is it morally acceptable to kill your mother because she didn't cook your steak to your liking?
This has nothing to do with science, mind you. But no, it is naturally not morally acceptable to kill my mother for that reason. But i doub that anyone would do that anyways. See above for my view on morals.
Atheism has never turned a criminal into a good person. Or a junkie into a non-user. Or an abusive person into someone who would never abuse anyone
But it is not for atheism to do this. Atheism is purely the question of whether or not a god exist. An atheist lives by the same code of morals as you do, and we draw them from the same places: Society and our upbringing. Do you mean to say that if there was no god, you would go around and kill people?
"Science" is only people giving their best "guess". *Only the "Creator" can explain the "creation". But, "we" (can) "feel" - in our Hearts - what is "right"!
No. Science is not guessing. Science isn't simply deciding something random. Science is getting an idea, testing it, proving it. We lean on science because we know it works. God has never spoken to me, and i can't simply agree to follow one single book, written thousands of years ago, on the word of a priest. How do you know that this isn't just a clever deception made to control people? How can you follow one book, when there are mountains of science that we could follow instead, much of this going directly against what it sais in the bible.
I used to be an atheist also
Why did you stop being an atheist? What proof did you get that convinced you that there was a creator?
But atheism can never be based on a concrete belief
Correct. Atheism has nothing to do with belief. If atheism is a belief, then "OFF" is a TV channel. Atheism is nothing more than a reasoned, logical deduction that there is no evidence for the existance of god, and thus we dont believe it.
The big bang? it has it's flaws, what started it? Everything comes from something right? There must a first cause, we can't keep going back, something needs to start the chain of events. Science can only give you so much.
Atheism and the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with each other. This is very important to understand. You could easely be an atheist and not follow the big bang theory. You could also be an atheist who wont buy into the theory of evolution. Atheism is only relevant in the context of "do you believe in god?".
That being said, i put a lot of credit to science. Science has the ability to backtrack, and at least give us probable cause to think that the universe started with a big bang. We dont know yet how it started, but we are very certain of what happened after it.
We have reason to believe that our theories are correct. We have evidence and arguments that supports it. You have a single book that sais that an unproven entity snapped his fingers, and made us out of dirt. And, ofcourse, there is always the "where did god come from?" question that hovers as a retort to your own "what made the big bang?" question.
The big question is really, why the need to invent something? If we dont know the answer yet, then we can accept that as an unknown. There is no reason in simply assuming that "it must have been god", when we can't know at all, and there is nothing to back up the claim. You could just as well assume that it was the Invisible Pink Unicorn that made the universe, and you would be no better off.
Have you heard of Pascal's wager? what do you make of it?
First off, lets talk about probability. Either the bible was written by a handfull of people that was inspired by god, or it was written by a handfull of people that saw a way to control people. This is the pivot point on the whole question of religions credibility. Is it more probable that the bible is an inspired work, or that it was made to control people? Bear in mind the staggering number of religions these days, and take special note to the suicide cults and the like. When you look at these, you dont give them credit for being divinely inspired (you'd be a fool to do so, and it would be against your religion). You can clearly see that these cults are made to control people, for greed or power or some sexually deviant urge. You must be able to see this.
Consider then, that it does not matter if the bible was made because of heavenly inspiration or simple greed - the ways of spreading the word is still the same. You still have Moses, and later Jesus, walking around, trying to convince people to follow him. Its a matter of time before the religion either dies away, or you get enough people converted to have it grow by itself. You teach your religion to your kids, and they to theirs and so on. But you have no way of verifying how the religion started.
And considering the staggering amount of bogus religions popping up (scientology is only 50-60 years old, and look at its succes now), and decide for yourself how big the chance of godly inspired scripture there is. For me, not very big.
With this in mind, you must realise that there is a chance that you are following these rules (blindly, because you ask not for evidence) that was made by mere mortals that wanted to control the people around them. It is cleverly made, so that if you question the scripture, you already have a foot in hell. It all comes down to fear, really. God demands our faith, and yet he does nothing to gain it. He has never shown himself to me, i have no reason to believe in him, and i have plenty of science that goes against the one book that teaches about him. In fact, god could settle this whole argument by appering once, in front of everyone in the whole world, and we would actually be a better world - if everybody knew that there was a god, and who he was, then we would stop most wars, end most futes, avoid most murders and all live in peace. God has the power to instantly make everybody have unquestionable faith in him, but he doesn't do it. He is willing, however, to thrown me in hell if i don't believe in him.
I talked to a priest once - i actually came to his church because he wanted me to experience his cermon (show, really). Afterwards we talked, and he (Peter) told me that he had spoken to god. God wanted me to believe in him, and i asked Peter if it was unreasonable that i - the intelligent creature that god had made - asked for proof before i believed something. God told Peter that it was perfectly reasonable, and God wanted to give me proof. God said to Peter, as i was sitting there, that he would heal me. I have a bad back, and poor eyesight, and i asked if god wanted to heal this - he would, he had offered it himself. I had no less than three priests from this church, their hands on me, praying for me to be healed. God had just said he would, after all.
Its been a year now - my back still hurts, and i still spend money on contacts.
It seems like a lot of work to "believe, just be safe", when i have absolutely no reason to do so, and plenty of reason not to.
