Riddle me this Athiests...

Originally posted by CHA0S
reply to post by havok

 

Because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions.

I'm going to have to disagree on this one Havok. Well, not completely, that's obviously part of the reason, but a large portion of people have more respectable reasons IMO.

I agree.
That's in whole where alot of people's beliefs and faiths are different.
Also, that is what makes us all individuals and human.

I see alot of flames coming my way...

(maybe I should've stayed out of this one)

"Faith and religion are double-edged swords. Religion is meant to unite people but then it does just as well at dividing them especially when people in power use it (which they have and still do). It is true that when we were still young as a species faith motivated us, belief that we had the favor of the gods drove us forward and we built great cities and monuments many of which stand to this day. Science and religion need not be at odds but religion must find a way to adapt to the modern world or to at least stomp out the plague of fundamentalism. See its one thing to take moral lessons from the stories in your religion but another entirely to believe everything the book says is absolute truth. Blind faith is dangerous as is being unable to separate deity from doctrine.

I don't think it is arrogant to reject the human notion of God. Even if there is a God out there what resemblance, if any, might he/she/it even have to our primitive myths? I'm guessing not much... "

I couldn't have said it any better than you did above Titen Sxull!

It's not that I don't believe in God so much as I don't feel we as such an unevolved specie don't have the capacity to really know what God is. So many religions use God to impose their own "spin" on what their current agenda is at the moment. Is simply is not feasible for us to label what God is without either humanizing what "he"is or finding a somewhat vague and idealized notion of what me hope/want God to be.


[edit on 18-5-2010 by itsallmaya]

[edit on 18-5-2010 by itsallmaya]

Here is the one fundamental difference.

RANK in every religion there is a ranking system of men, promoting inequality and allowing those who have rank to have power over men who have no rank.

In athieism if you went strictly by the definition that is, for the most part is the belief that dieties or rank does not exist for ll men are created equal.

If one man can be called the son of God and spawn a bloodline that would rise to power for thousands of years that is not exactly all men being created equal is it?

If there are two groups of men that believe they are entitled to the land of Israel based on their religious beliefs with no substancial evidence then it is indeed a fight for power and not inequality right?

If there is a group of men thart believes they were ordained by God then there really is no equality to speak of is there?


So thats the major difference. In my opinion the only thing that can atrributed with God like characteristics is consciouscness because it is not bound by physical bodies is the one energy called the GLOBAL SUBCONSCIOUS which is love that connects us with everything in the world as well as the expanding universe outside.

And one more thing there is evidence and scientists have began eplaining alot.

It is called fractal geometry and states quite simply that everything exists as a matter of sacred geometry.

Originally posted by gandhi
When people get into a mind set, they think in that mind set. Its called growth.
Most people change their minds 50 times about 1 thing in a lifetime.

I change my mind about ATS several times in a DAY.

"This is a great source of information and lively debate."

"This is full of uncited garbage and muddle-headedness."

"People have strong, unwavering opinions here..."

"...but they contradict themselves in similar threads."

And so on.

It amazes me how many people are aghast at the idea of people accepting the "Official Story" on "Conspiracy X," and accuse believers in the OS as believing on "faith," yet are fine with accepting a deity that is, after all, from an "Official Story" - what is the Bible but the OS on Judaism and Christianity?

There are innumerable people here who are full of doubt about the world and everything that occurs...but when it comes to the supernatural, they completely submit themselves to dogma and mythology.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull

The thing is though if you can postulate God by saying "how can you be sure no such being exists?" than you could say the same thing for giant space penguins or trolls or Unicorns or any other creature your imagination can conjure.

Yes...but "God", isn't just another fictional fairy-tale...well, it could be, but that's not what I meant...what I mean is, the universe is so complex, and the nature of reality is so little understood, the existence of a "God", is actually not all that unlikely IMO...I said something that may be relevant just recently actually:

Having said all that, I still believe there's an extremely high chance some sort of super consciousness exists. Just given the mere complexity of the universe, and reality it's self. It's sort of like trying to say there aren't other intelligent beings in our universe. If intelligent life can form out the elements on one planet (us on Earth), then I think it's almost a given that some sort of super-consciousness will develop out of the elements of the universe.

Given that we all came from one singularity, I do believe the universe is one big interconnected web of energy...and therefor, why can't it be one big brain? A complex neural network that achieves mind blowing computational and cognitive processing power...the actual universe could be the mind of God...therefor God is everything and everyone...and we are each a small part of "God"...

Even if you do believe in God, and plenty of scientists do, that doesn't make the evidence you uncover any less real. For instance, evolution, even if God did exist it wouldn't stop being true. Science, in that way, is the study of "God's" Universe to find the truths that religion cannot give us. So believers should really look at science as exploring God's Universe and unlocking its mysteries.

I completely agree.

Who are you to say there are no giant Penguins in space? Do you know that for sure

No...I don't...but what I'm saying is, Atheists have no right to claim there is no God...and argue with "believers" that they are following a non-existent, imaginary being...because as you made clear, they don't know that for sure...and faith isn't necessarily a bad thing to have, as long as it isn't used to manipulate and deceive people as I said.

If you study science you'll find that everything once thought to be supernatural has been found to have a natural explanation. For life, we found fossil and genetic evidence that clearly points to things evolving, things did not get conjured by magic words. We found that disease wasn't caused by spirits or demons (or body thetans for that matter) but by germs.

Correct. I believe absolutely everything can be explained in a logical fashion...however, when you see something amazing, something that seems to defy all logic, such as spirits, or telepathy, etc, how can scientists instantly conclude that it's non-existent nonsense? Seems aweful ignorant to me. Then as a result, the subject simply receives little funding and research time because scientists are already convinced it isn't real, whilst others just don't want to look like the mad scientist of the group. Just because it appears to be mysterious and mind-boggling in nature, doesn't mean it can't be studied and explained. We know absolutely nothing about this universe in retrospect. We are an extremely primitive species only just entering the electronic age, yet we act as if we are all knowing beings with little left to discover. How niave.

Science and religion need not be at odds but religion must find a way to adapt to the modern world or to at least stomp out the plague of fundamentalism.
----
Blind faith is dangerous as is being unable to separate deity from doctrine.

Spot on!

[edit on 18/5/10 by CHA0S]

reply to post by CHA0S

You don't know there is definitely no God, and neither do I

To be an atheist doesnt mean you say "i know there's is no god". I dont know if there is a god, but i dont see, feel or experience god. Therefore i dont go around believing in [insert god name] This makes me an atheist. An agnostic atheist, but an atheist non the less.

Atheists can be agnostic. I dont know (agnostic), but i dont believe in any of the gods (atheist)

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
I don't believe in God because I don't see any evidence that there is one or that the Universe would require one

Here's the thing I don't understand; if one has an absence of belief in God from a logical or rational perspective, then surely that absence of belief must extend to every single hypothetical explanation for the universe and everything in existence.

I can't see how it could be argued that the universe does or doesn't require a God, when we have no idea what is or isn't required ?
This is what confuses me, as I personally think that we are not in a position to rule anything in or out when it comes to the bigger picture of existence.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by Conspiracy Chicks fan !]

reply to post by Daniem

Atheists can be agnostic. I dont know (agnostic), but i dont believe in any of the gods (atheist)

Well, I always thought, if you "don't know", you obviously wouldn't be believing in a God. Looking at Wikipedia, it says:

Atheism is commonly described as the position that there are no deities.[1] It can also mean the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.

So, I guess it can mean both. But as should be clear by my initial post, I'm clearly aiming this at those Atheists who try to out-right argue there is no God and tell the believers their faith is meaningless. Seems more like a way of stripping hope from others to make themselves feel better about their own miserable existence.

Originally posted by 12.21.12
In athieism if you went strictly by the definition that is, for the most part is the belief that dieties or rank does not exist for ll men are created equal.

I wouldn't entirely agree with that. Equality is a subjective concept, the same as superiority or inferiority. It is up to each person's perception as to whether they are equal, superior or inferior to someone else.

In fact, as all life is related, all living creatures should be regarded as equal, but there's still an unofficial pecking order that people put on various species - just ask white mice that are subjected to some truly sickening experiments.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by Conspiracy Chicks fan !]

reply to post by Conspiracy Chicks fan !


Well that would give way to our current form of government.

But the point is not that we are all created equal, the point is that we are all one and with this reality you can not go and kill one species without doing some sort of damage to your own species.

Or when the coral reef dies, all life around it will die too.

reply to post by CHA0S

I'm clearly aiming this at those Atheists who try to out-right argue there is no God and tell the believers their faith is meaningless

Well i doubt there are many of those atheists (who argue deism).
Sure, they may argue that none of the deities and gods from human stories are real. For example thor, zeus, apollo, yahweh, hades etc.

I am one who has argued it.. but not just plain deism... I dont know about some unknown deity\deities, but im pretty sure about the gods in our religons. They are made up by humans.

reply to post by mothershipzeta

So, all they have to do is prove a negative? Sorry, but the default position is "there is/are no god(s)," since nothing shows existence of any deities except books written (and repeatedly translated) thousands of years ago.

Why is "there is/are no god(s)" the freaking default position?!? You've just jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. True, nothing can prove it, but neither can it be disproved, therefor, the default position is "unknown"...however, I see no problem at all with faith. And I see no problem with people without faith. I have a problem with either of these people claiming they have the answer, and pushing it on others.

And you're agnostic - you apparently don't think there is evidence of a deity, so where do you get off criticizing people who embrace their lack of belief, rather than projecting their own inadequacies onto others?

Embrace your lack of belief all you want, I certainly do. But what my post is all about, is pointing out that Atheists go over the top with this, just like believers do. Just as you don't want to hear their crap, they don't want to hear your "default position" beliefs. You get people too extreme on either end and they feel it becomes their mission to spread the word or punish wrongdoers... or to make others realize the error of their ways...

[edit on 18/5/10 by CHA0S]

I think many atheists who are of the more strident type are that way because they see that religion, theism in particular, is not a harmless life choice. Its not stamp collecting.

The implications frighten them.

Its not so much they are anti-god. Its anti unfounded belief. An unfounded belief in magic pixies, elves or to poach a phrase from another poster 'giant space penguins' is just as bad.

True believers are dangerous. Whether that be the jihadi with bomb pack, a North Korean adoring the great leader, or the christian creationist teaching their children that the bible is literally true (the apple, the serpent etc).

You can say 'but they are extremists'. Thats true. But they all start out at some point deciding to believe something without evidence. Once you've made that mental leap you're on a slippery slope.

The willingness of people to believe in things for which there is no evidence at all is probably the one flaw that will undo us all as our technology improves.

Religion is 'unreason' and we wont be able to survive it for ever. It is that worry that makes some atheists behave the way they do.

I think it's fairly obvious that there is consciousness on a level we are to inept to perceive.

Hello? You have 20-30 years awareness experience, in a Universe that is thought to be 14 billion years old.

It's easy to see through the lies of the Holy Roman Empire. It's the obvious pitfall, once you realise the Church is full of sh!t, the next step in logic is that there is no God. You have one life! Make the most of it! Consume, consume! etc.. a deep appreciation for history would help one understand the progression of lies. I would suggest that anyone interested in understanding our esoteric history and perhaps find a new path of knowledge, look into Manly P. Hall lectures. You can find them as a torrent.

If we were speaking directly, I would be able to help much more. But I am not an author, nor a forum addict any more, and writing is really not my thing.

Fragment out!

reply to post by CHA0S

It's high time I pointed my "finger of blame", so to speak, away from those with faith, and towards those with an absence of faith. I'm talking about Atheists of course, those who try to argue "there is no God".

Actually Atheism is disbelieving in any god, not saying there's no god. Hence a big difference between saying there's probably no god, and saying there definitely isn't a god.

What if atheist's simply do not find it necessary to consider - so they don't have faith. They aren't conclusively stating anything about god because they see no necessity to even think about it.

reply to post by purplemonkeydishwasher


Im glad you said that. I was actually thinking about that. You see I used to consider my self a christian. But before that I was born as an athiests and basically had more knowledge about the universe than most humans. But when I was about 5 my parents brought me to church and after 5-6 years of indoctrination I finally gave in. 10-15 years later plus at least 10 of those years of research on the Bible looking for answers I realized that Christianity is a model for social control and the story of Jesus is highly exaggerated at best.

In all honesty though, there is enough mystery in the Bible, I do still consult the Bible just as much or more than any christian would.

Only because to me it is obvious. The story of creation in the Bible is told through astrology just the same as mythology was.

It was a way to communicate actual events both future and past by consulting the stars.

The mythical Gods then became a way of describing astronomical events. Religious and political leaders take this one step further by altering the identities of these Gods to describe themselves, in return giving them power and a religion.

If you want truth, consult some more ancent resources such as the text Jesus studied himself. The vedas, also don't forget about the ancient sumerians.

Religion is nothing but a model for social control. Plain and simple.

Originally posted by CHA0S

How can you believe in something you can neither define nor comprehend?

Faith.

Faith in what? I still don't get it. I don't see how you can believe or have faith in anything you can't define or comprehend.

reply to post by havok


How am i being judgemental? Just read what you wrote. I am just using the basis of your original argument WHICH WAS

I believe that the reason people denounce God is this: Because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions.

I hold myself accountable for my own actions.

Your the one being judgemental, that is where my resentmant towards you on this topic has come from. And yeh by the looks of your views and comments you should have stayed out of it.

Blue Shift- Starred.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by Peruvianmonk]

Originally posted by havok
I am not Atheist, but I do want to add this.

I believe that the reason people denounce God is this:

Because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions.

I can't get any simpler than that.

I am an atheist and don't believe in God because there is no evidence to support it. I'm sure this is the same for most atheists. It has nothing to do with wanting to commit crimes and be sinful. That's just a Christian fantasy.