Why Atheists are Unrelenting

reply to post by jiggerj


It appears we are in agreement on the nature of spirituality.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


What's your spiritual stance in this discussion, anyway? What point of view are you coming from?

I think it's more a matter of atheists not wanting anyone telling them what to do, or of any sort of boundaries, or commandments or restrictions. I believe they want to have the right to do anything they want, making their own choices based on their own views of culture and society. Unhindered as it were. And.... that oftentimes comes into conflict with Christian views. I might point out that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and the teachings of modern churches are not one and the same. For many, Christianity is a name they call their organizations to allow them certain benefits like taxation and a view by the public as benevolent, when in reality they are far from it. They are 'for profit' organizations disguised as Churches. To them it's a business. True Christians have a much different view and practice. Everyone will have to answer at judgment .......uh, that is except atheists... which don't believe. True Christians will be covered with forgiveness by the Blood & Sacrifice of Christ at judgment. Deny and ignore all you want. You had better hope when you do die, there is nothing more, or maybe some fluid reunification into energy or whatever you do or don't believe. You will be on your own. And thats what you want....right? Your own reality.

reply to post by Plotus


My personal opinion is that none of that matters. The problem is heaven and hell. Go to heaven for kissing daddy's ass all your life, or go to hell for doing things your own way. And that's only part of it. The whole damn T&C's of this Christian deal is stupid. Literally, stupid. It's a horror novel dressed up as a "Success For Dummies" handbook.

reply to post by jiggerj

Oh, Un heavenly Hitchins, who no longer exists in any dimension, please forgive them for they know not what they spew.

One thing no one can take away from you or us for that matter is our sense of humor.

Can you blame us for moaning, look around the world, hardly a shining example of the power of religion for peace and the goodwill of mankind is it?

The more we see the more religion becomes a repulsive power of bad....

I personally don't care for it and I have very very good reasons NOT to like it but if it floats your boat then fine by me but don't expect to push it in my face or force it on my child without me responding, and here in lies the issue, there's so many in the world that follow some sort of religion that they actually believe they have the right to enforce it on people whereas most Atheists just laugh at people and get on with it.

Just because a great many people follow religion does not mean its right, billions of flies eat s**t but should humans start eating that because its so popular?

I'm not saying that to abuse religion, just as an analogy of numbers..

Religion for me is used to pressurise control, do or be damned you might say, I choose to look around and assess what is logically correct for me and my family, we make that choice ourselves and not because a religion says its correct. Especially religions that tell women to ride side saddle on motor bikes, religions that cover up the continued abuse of children or beliefs that would ask you to kill yourself as a protest.

Don't even get me started about the Vatican and what they do...

Enjoy your faith but individuals have the right of choice..

Atheism is an aspect of god it's rebellion. I don't know how well you understand god. But he is a conflicting hard headed individual. The more you shove something down his throat the more he's gonna do the opposite.

Atheism is an aspect of god it's rebellion. I don't know how well you understand god. But he is a conflicting hard headed individual. The more you shove something down his throat the more he's gonna do the opposite.

Originally posted by DeadLights
Atheism is an aspect of god it's rebellion. I don't know how well you understand god. But he is a conflicting hard headed individual. The more you shove something down his throat the more he's gonna do the opposite.

To be honest I think you will find that something is being pushed down our throats and we respect the ability to NOT BELIEVE. I as a non believer just respond when people tell me I'm wrong and should believe, no matter how hard people try and pressurise me I'm not going to convert, I've seen religion at its most nasty face to face and it was just ultra believers who were basically as evil as you could be.

Sorry, but when your life is threatened for being the wrong religion it kind of tells you to get the heck out of all that madness, I'd rather be pro life than a mad butcher.

One day if all this religious madness build up continues YOU will be asked to convert or be killed, what will you do...

reply to post by Mclaneinc


Yeah and the whole not believing is an aspect of the creator. In order for it to exist it had to be thought of!

It's that simple. Occams razor!

reply to post by Mclaneinc


Yeah and the whole not believing is an aspect of the creator. In order for it to exist it had to be thought of!

It's that simple. Occams razor!

reply to post by Mclaneinc

The more we see the more religion becomes a repulsive power of bad....

Religion, not spirit. Religion is politics, spirituality isn't. Spirituality is a good practice. Just to be clear on that.

My take on it... Christ said to go out and spread the gospel, and that if they would not hear you, to dust off your sandals and move on to the next town. I don't think he intended to shove it down anyone's throat. That just wasn't his way. It's man who over time, sought to score numbers and force it upon people. Atheists have every right to believe their own tenants, and not be encumbered by those who believe otherwise. Law..... well thats a different story. It's put there to guide and make citizens safe, and provide boundaries for behavior.

True Christians will feel a sadness for those who will not accept God, but at the same time they must continue on to those who will be receptive, and do nothing against those who will not heed their teachings. If you behave otherwise, it's clear, you have an other agenda than the one Christ taught.
I choose to be a Christian.... I can't envision any other way, and that is by way of a life of learning.
BUT..... in the end, only one can be the truth. Go your way in peace...

reply to post by Plotus

My take on it... Christ said to go out and spread the gospel, and that if they would not hear you, to dust off your sandals and move on to the next town. I don't think he intended to shove it down anyone's throat. That just wasn't his way. It's man who over time, sought to score numbers and force it upon people.

Right. And the "Gospel" that Jesus was referring to was his own teachings of the "Kingdom of Heaven" being within, of Love and forgiveness and humility.

Jesus never taught about an apocalypse or the "Four Horsemen" or beasts rising out of the sea with horns. Jesus didn't say that many would come in my name and write their own different version of my teachings, and you should teach that above my teachings! (Cough, cough PAUL)

If Christians preached was Jesus taught and NOT so much of Revelation and Paul's philosophies, maybe more people would pay attention and wouldn't be so mocking.

Greetings ATS

I really have Questions involving The Rapture , i find this specific event to say for the least......Discriminating.
these are Mereley Democratic Questions and Questions involving Freedom of Choice.
But i dont get Aswers ..... i must choose to be With them or against them no questions asked.

Sorry to say these Topics make me lose my temper a bit .... i get really frustated by the fact people are continually being judge on what they believe in , not their actions , its a development ongoing since the dawn of Mankind wich has lead us far away from the real truth , the fact that we are the same , we breath the same air , we all have Earth as our home.

Religion has probably divided us for good , atleast until the end , These Powerful Organisations Decided to go into the history books as opressors of Freedom and Development while they could have used all their powers to initiate Dialogue or any form of Positive Support

Imagine having the ability to travel space us Humans in lets say....the next 500 years , and we would still believe God , what if we would encounter possible other Races , with possibly total different believes then us , what would happen then ,? would we be able to even make contact with them if we cant even Agree with our own race as in terms of Beliefs ? or would we wage Intergalactic "crusades" and take the fall ?

In my oppinion Religion brings too many Questions we dont need , we are living in times where Technoligical Breakthroughs are going trough the roof , and in my oppinion Religion Borders off the way we look at these things

TheGreazel

"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed."

~ Carl Sagan

I'm not a part of any religious group or order, but I believe there is an intelligent design to the universe. What does that make me?

reply to post by Konduit

I'm not a part of any religious group or order, but I believe there is an intelligent design to the universe. What does that make me?

An unallied creationist.

To lighten the mood just a smidgen, I just had an interesting thought while having my morning (afternoon to some) coffee. The thing that scares me most of Religion is MONEY. I LOVE money, hoard it, save it, invest it. I really do not think I could just give it up like they do. Church costs a lot of money. And along the road through this, that, collection plates. 'donations', some have gone completely broke. Anyway, if this is what life is 'worth' to them down here, and 'Heaven' is the ultimate goal, how the 'eck much are the tickets worth to get in there?! I wonder just how many in the end don't get in 'cause they spent all their money in Church? Maybe THAT'S what all the money is hoarded for in Church, so the leaders can afford their entrance fee?

This is a re-post from a good discussion I had with another member in another topic.

I've never been religious personally, but beliefs I once held could be termed "spiritual" and I have studied many religions, and the history of mysticism in general. I struggle with the concept of mortality, and the apparent lack of any inherent meaning or purpose to my existence, life, thoughts, and emotions.

Stark, frank reality, as revealed by science and observation, and scientific theories consistent therewith, reveal reality to be quite nihilistic. People disagree with that, and that is their prerogative, but that is my impression. According to the most current research that we have to draw upon when attempting to describe reality and our place in it, everything we experience that we attribute meaning or importance to may in fact be inherently meaningless.

One possible interpretation of reality based purely upon science and scientific theory is this:

Emotions are electrochemical interactions in the brain. Thoughts and choices are just emergent behaviors. Matter isn't matter as we traditionally conceive of it. We are stuck like flies in fly paper, in what is termed a membrane. All matter is simply disturbance and complexity in said membrane, which at the fundamental level is just quantum "foam." The universe may exist as an undefined expanse of dimensional interplay and movement, without purpose or origin necessarily.

Love, friendship, family, and everything else we value are inherently meaningless beyond evolutionary necessity, which in turn is simply a result of natural selection. Natural selection is not a magical force, but simply "how things shake out." You can witness a analogous form of natural selection by dumping a bag of differently weighted and buoyant stones into water. Some will rise to the top, others will not. They are not alive or animate, but they undergo natural selection. Biological life as we know it, replete with the aforementioned emergent behaviors and interactions that give us the illusion of consciousness, free will, and our lives having "meaning," originated with natural selection amid similarly inanimate substances long ago. We are "just how things shook out."

Any attempts to assign greater meaning to our existence than this, such as by acknowledging and embracing scientific knowledge but then also going beyond it to say that somehow being altruistic (including philosophies such as Humanism, which frequently attest atheism and science) is innately good or preferable for any reason other than "it feels good because humans' survival benefited from the development of empathy," are the cognitive mind using dissonance to reestablish the illusion of purpose and importance. There is no "greater good" because life has no meaning other than that which we attribute to it in an attempt to avoid the realization of nihilism and existential terror, as any life form without these defense mechanisms would experience. And any thoughts of "doing good" or being a "good person" are irrational unless viewed simply as the result of the biological mind's attempts to justify and preserve its importance, and perpetuate itself or its offspring.

All life forms of sufficient complexity have a survival instinct, because this is beneficial to their species' perpetuation, the pursuit of which only evolved through natural selection by being the most fit to survive. In short, nothing matters, and when your life ends, your consciousness and the emergent behaviors arising from the interactions of the brain that give rise to it, will also end. You will cease to exist, period.

Note that the above is not what I firmly believe necessarily. However, it is one possible interpretation of reality. And it is one not inconsistent with the available facts. So that being the case, I think it's easy to fathom why people have all kinds of techniques, tendencies, methods, and beliefs to provide their existences meaning and structure. Whether that means some form of spirituality, imaginary friends, a personal philosophy, a pet project, a lifelong goal, or organized religion, people have a profound, and probably evolutionarily inherent, need - not just want, but need - to give their lives meaning, or to feel that their lives have been given meaning by someone or something else.

While not religious, I often say I believe in human love. But what is love? According to science, it's a specific distribution of thoughts, electrical activity, and neurotransmitters. It has no inherent meaning, other than its evolutionary function. And yet I am compelled, logical or no, to transcend that definition. Because that is my nature and to do otherwise results in pain. If you care about anything - family, your own children, etc. anything - and believe it matters beyond your brain's need to think so, you have faith in my opinion, whether you choose to term it such or not.

Peace.

reply to post by AceWombat04


Should have one of those Facebook "Like" buttons!
Cheers for that one!