Poll shows atheism on the rise in the U.S.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


that's funny...

The fact that Cracked can find it and you don't bothe researching it tells me that cracked is a better source than you are!

actually I read it..

Yes you do. I told you already.

hmm didn't notice

IMO that's a poor position to take - there are many more things in the universe than you can ever experience, and to refuse to entertain the evidence others can provide is foolish IMO.

wow! really?? I mean problems I have CONQUERED myself, LESSONS I have learned myself, and SKILLS I have taught myself. Yes I take everything from both sides, and I follow science and anything else I can, but I do not take any of it as 100% fact.

Since you do not know what hte force was why do you say it was god? Why couldn't it be her smashed just randomly wandering around non-compis-mentis? And if it was god why does it hae to have been the x-ian god? why not Odin or Moloch or Allah or any one of hundreds of other gods?

I speak of god as a force or energy no one knows what it is, these hundreds of other gods you speak of could very well be one that did it, I do not know...

Appreciated....then you went and screwed it up with your next post.

yup such is life indeed

...gee whats the point of breaking things down like this?

Originally posted by SolarIce
I really try my best to treat everyone like a brother and sister, but sometimes people here on the internet, and this forum especially like to pretend they know everything there is to know, or that they have it all figured out.

Can't you just speak your mind and stop whining.

Nobody owes you anything.

i]reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

Any god has had over 53 years of chances to make him/her/itself felt or to intervene in my life - so far none of them have taken advantage of any opportunity to do so that I have noticed

These quotes are a good summation of what I feel about your comment.

: " When I saw others straining toward God, I did not understand it, for though I may have had him less than they did, there was no one blocking the way between him and me, and I could reach his heart easily. It is up to him, after all, to have us, our part consists of almost solely in letting him grasp us." ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke and Benvenuta: An Intimate Correspondence

Honestly, I'm not trying to assert that "my way should be yourway"....however, when you observe and hear about many others who DO believe in God, please reflect on the simplicity of thisquote:"God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home." ~Joseph Roux, Meditations of a Parish Priest, 1886

reply to post by Annee


When did I ever say I wanted anything? lol ......

and I'm pretty sure that isn't whining, and was indeed speaking my mind, no see whining would be

"you guys stooop being stupid, seriously you guuuys are making this so hard to treat you like one, c'mon stop it!"

I think I've given enough proof for the existence of a Creator(all it takes is for ONE of these to be true: Simulated Universe, Holographic Universe, Aliens, and then there are a couple of theories that would most likely lead to the existence of a Creator, which are String Theory and Chaos Theory. It's the people who are stuck with their evolution or God mindset that think there's no proof of God), so here we go with the myth that religion is the cause of everything evil again. Guys like Stalin and Hitler are atheists(or Darwinists) at heart, because only someone who is very despondent(or truly believe that he came from monkeys), or who doesn't believe there is any consequence to his actions, could do the things that they did.

Let's not forget that looking at history, that even though humans have a tendency for wars, at any point in time, it's really just a few people that tend to brainwash people and lead them astray. Most of the people in other areas don't want violence. And if people think things are bad now, can you imagine what it would be like if the world was mostly atheists? I'd argue that if the world was 95% atheists, you'd see even more wars and more Jame Holmes than there are now. And what's to stop a guy like Kim Jong Un from thinking, well, if I'm going to die, and there's no hell for my actions, then why not "go out with a bang?"

reply to post by SolarIce

I really try my best to treat everyone like a brother and sister, but sometimes people here on the internet, and this forum especially like to pretend they know everything there is to know, or that they have it all figured out.

Well it seems to me you are no less guilty of 'having it all figured out'...

In fact I would take that a step further and say with conviction the Bible, and the belief of many of its followers, claim answer to all these big questions, whether morality or existence itself. It seems clear to me it's the Christians (and other dogmatic religions) as a whole that are much more guilty of pretending to know everything.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


huh? I dont follow the bible, I dont claim any religion.

I never said I have it all figured all, that quote you just made is the truth. In person I have no problem handing myself and listening to anything someone has to say, but on the internet everyone is to caught up playing "know it all"

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


ABA

Oh - - and knowledge led me to atheism.

reply to post by SolarIce


Fair enough. My apologies If I misrepresented you.

Disregard my first part then

reply to post by Annee



ugh..Annee if your an atheist thats your choice

but Knowledge led me to be spiritual

hmmm tis a sad day. I understand the decline in religion without a doubt, religion sucks nuts. But to believe there is nothing behind all of this?

I am a man of science and it is not religious text that makes me believe there is something behind this, but observation and analysis.

I'm not even going to try to provide any definitive evidence, because there is none. But would like to voice a non religion based belief in a creator. I used to question if there was a creator or not, but after delving into the realm of physics and chemistry ( like going to school for it, not just reading about it, still in school for some of it so don't quiz me too hard if theres any physics pro trolls out there ^_^ ) I have come to the conclusion that there must be something behind what we call our reality.

I see too much beauty and intricacy in the way things interact for this to have happened out of chance. I'm not talking about the chance of life in all the countless galaxies and solar systems ( yes i do believe there to be vast amounts of life elsewhere in our universe, not our creator though, i believe it/him/her/whatever to exist outside our realm of existence, able to manipulate our dimensions of reality; existing in different dimensions than what we can observe ) but the chance for the laws of physics and the way chemicals react with each other to have played out the way it did. There was only one shot at that, only one set of rules that all matter must act by, and it worked in its one chance, and provides us all the majesty and wonder we observe in our reality today. Religion? Hell no! ( tehehe, hell....no religion...irony... get it... sorry -_- ) Chance? Not a chance.... Something that exist outside of what we can observe setting this in motion? Very plausible.

Just my two cents anyways. Not trying to prove I'm right or anything, just providing an alternative perspective, for it is through different perspectives that we can find common truth.

reply to post by silent thunder


Well as someone who nearly became part of that growing number, I can tell you that it's because of hypocrisy, mechanical-like marches to churches and sermons without reason or desire to, and in general a lack of actually doing what you preach.

You can't go and spend trillions on wars and global offenses, cutting back on research and space exploration, all the while saying thanks to God and expect a young man watching this to think you are legit or even sane.


The future of religion in the US, and indeed the world, are those new messianic movements and nondenominational groups. They actually practice what they preach, do signs of great intrigue, and have a spirit about them that draws you in.


If you think people like Bachmann and Paul Ryan are attracting people to religion, you fail.

Originally posted by SolarIce
reply to post by Annee

 

ugh..Annee if your an atheist thats your choice

but Knowledge led me to be spiritual

I prefer factual knowledge.

However - - there are also Spiritual Atheists.

Well to address the original question...

I think a certain amount of bleakness has entered into at least the Christian side of religion. A general depression is setting in in the general population. Not knowing where to turn, they are turning to anti-depressants.

The bleakness has turned away those not so serious; those that just went to church with no real reason. Someone else mentioned on here about the youth. That's right. Later though, as people get more and more depressed and we get ourselves into another war or worse, the flock will return in droves.

No matter what you call it, there are certain universal laws (like natural law) that should never be broken, but once they are broken, there will be hell to pay so to speak. In one way or the other, the damage done will right itself over time. Now whether you think that's God or randomness is up to you, but only correct logic will lead you in the right direction.

And no one can make the decision for you. If you want to stake a claim in a belief, jump in with both feet and try it on for size. You owe that to yourself. Then you can more easily ascertain whether you are a good fit for that belief.

reply to post by Annee


Knowledge led me out of atheism.

Human bias.

reply to post by Annee


Spiritual Atheists? I've never heard these two words use in the same sentence. I would look this up, but I have a feeling that you could explain it much better to me. well if your willing of course.

reply to post by SolarIce


Well I already gave a very brief description of it. ( a terrible one)

I wont expand on it since it was a post to Annee.

But I must point out, since you were avoiding being associated with dogmatic religion, your aversion to the idea that an atheist can be spiritual

Originally posted by SolarIce
reply to post by Annee

 

Spiritual Atheists? I've never heard these two words use in the same sentence. I would look this up, but I have a feeling that you could explain it much better to me. well if your willing of course.

Atheism means "lack of belief in a god/deity" - - - there are hard atheists that think everything has to be scientifically proven. But - I believe everything is energy. That thought is creative energy. I believe consciousness exists in energy. But there is no God - - in the religious sense.

THE CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL ATHEISM: www.spiritualatheism.com...

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by silent thunder

 

Well as someone who nearly became part of that growing number, I can tell you that it's because of hypocrisy, mechanical-like marches to churches and sermons without reason or desire to, and in general a lack of actually doing what you preach.

You can't go and spend trillions on wars and global offenses, cutting back on research and space exploration, all the while saying thanks to God and expect a young man watching this to think you are legit or even sane.


The future of religion in the US, and indeed the world, are those new messianic movements and nondenominational groups. They actually practice what they preach, do signs of great intrigue, and have a spirit about them that draws you in.


If you think people like Bachmann and Paul Ryan are attracting people to religion, you fail.

edit on 16-8-2012 by Gorman91 because: (no reason given)

edit on 16-8-2012 by Gorman91 because: (no reason given)

The problem with all that spending on the wars is that they've lost touch with the rest of us Prols. They don't care to translate to us why they spend all that money for war. They say it's for our freedom, but we don't see that. Only after much analysis did I see some semblance of logic.

Wars are no longer simple country vs. country. It's multi-dimensional, long and drawn out and now has to be completely hidden, well as much as possible, from the general populace due to political reasons and now due to spies in our own ranks. We bystanders are in play even now as we speak as we are propagandized as much as possible to stay out of the loop.

All to secure our right to practice what we'd like. Freedom OF Religion. Communism, historically Athiest, has infiltrated our democratic left and want to take this country down from the inside. Wars can't fight that. We have to on our level to secure our future.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


well my impression is that an atheist does not believe in afterlife, higher powers, etc. anyways if you already touched on it a bit in the thread, theres no need for Annee to reply, I'll just dig up your post.