Why choose atheism?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

You need not go back 800 years...

The Crusades in the Baltic Sea area and in Central Europe were efforts by (mostly German) Christians to subjugate and convert the peoples of these areas to Christianity. These Crusades ranged from the 12th century, contemporaneous with the Second Crusade, to the 16th century.

1990 The Bosnian War -
There is a strong correlation between ethnic identity and religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. as is shown by the fact that 99% of Bosniaks are Muslims, 98% of Croats are Catholics whilst 99% of Serbs are Orthodox Christians. Tensions between the three constitutional peoples remain high in BiH and often provoke political disagreements.

Most wars in the 21st century have been proxy wars. The proxy wars are generally fought in third world countries where life is cheaper. Many wars have been fought over supposed political aims, the US and USSR has backed many of these.

That fact that ANY holy wars exist (not just christian) should seriously cause us to question the value of religion.

As for paganism, we still celebrate pagan festivals only now we call them christmas and easter. If you study religions around the world you will find this subsuming or merging of faiths common where one religion is introduced over another. Look at the various types of buddism red hat, yellow hat, when I was in mongolia it was interesting to find they had added their sacred animals to the buddist religion as gods.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

All religiously themed though, oh your a catholic oh your a christian oh your a mulsim lets have a fight because you believe in abortion and I dont and you belive that cows should be eaten beacsue they are sacred, lets fight

Thats why I dont like religion, tis pointless

 

Okay, but as I stated, I'm not here to defend the actions of those who do evil in the name of any religion.

What do any of the supposed "proxy wars" have to do with religion? I think you're really stretching, here. In any case, it's pretty far from the topic of the thread.

 

Why not?

J.

 

Ultimately, it will be each individual believer who will be judged on how they were stewards of their faith. There are plenty of people out there that hide behind religious or a misuse of the Bible to justify the their heinous acts. The Bible speaks of a remnant of the faithful being in existance upon the return of the Messiah. There is also recorded in the Bible that many will approach Messiah and say:

"L-rd, L-rd...didn't I do miracles in your name..." and so forth, to which the Messiah replies:

"Get away from me, sinner. I never knew you".

Remaining faithful, cultivating that relationship day by day, year by year...struggling to do what G-d is telling you and working to better know Him and obey His desires isn't just a matter of warming a church pew and going to Sunday school.

It's a lifestyle and is integrated into every aspect of a believer's life. It's the standard we compare outselves to every day and of course, we will never have perfect fidelity to the original (Jesus) in terms of righteous living. Our faith defines us and any and all of our failures of faith damage our relationship with G-d and G-d's reputation in the eyes of humanity. When we fail, we fail not only G-d, but every one who is watching us.

You can tell me about the crusades and murders and wars done in the name of Christ and I'll tell you right now that I know there's plenty of blood on the hands of the church. I'll also tell you that there are plenty in "the church"; the body of the Messiah, that are there in name only and because of their human (sin) nature, misuse their position or worse, are wolves in sheep's clothing.

If someone kills another person and they say they did it in the name of Christ, they are misusing His name. You can judge that person for his or her crime, but that doesn't translate into our G-d being murderous. He's not. Only humans are. Look not for the common human being who says they're a believer but otherwise is indistinguishable from the rest of the world. Look for the person who calls themselves a believer but by their actions, you'd have known it anyway.

 

Thanks Michael, please let me expand on what i'm interested in though, it's not exactly religion is the true sense - i'm sort of more curious about what 'causes' belief.

I'm of a very scientific nature, i can't help this, it's just the way i am. The main attribute of this way my mind works is that i 'sit on the fence' on many things (i don't have favourite things for example). This isn't choice by the way, its a natural thing. I would very much like to learn though, why my mind acts in this way. Why is it different to a great many other people? this is key for me, the word 'different' as pointed out earlier - not better or worse, just different.

There are many people that take great comfort from the belief that there is a creator and this is something that i lack, so the way that i see it is that i'd be silly if i didnt try and find out a little more about this, am i just simply missing something ?

To be truly honest, everything that i've learned about our physical universe up until this point has made the task of accepting the theory of 'a creator' very difficult for me, i would be extremely, but pleasantly surprised though if someone had the ability to change my train of thought. Now there is a challenge.

 

"Its like you read my mind man..." But om not sure what your question is though. Are you asking about the cognitive processes and underlying need (I know Michael would dispute the use of the word "need") involved in "belief in general" or "belief in a higher being" ?

 

The challenge is to put your rational mind on hold and develop a bit of faith...

I think 'faith' is the important word here. You have to take a leap into the dark and embrace God. Science is irrelevant to this - it isn't about the universe or physics or mathematics... You either get it, or you don't. If you do get it, it's possible to lose it, if you don't get it, it's still possible that one day you will.

That's right, isn't it?

 

If i had to use a term to describe what I believe in, I would call myself a Spiritualist. But, that term only covers and masks the depth of what I believe, so a single term cannot be relevant to what I believe in, as it doesn't give credit to what I feel about what happens when we leave this world.

I certainly believe that there is a higher intelligence that operates outside (or inside) us, but I find it hard to reconcile "man-made" religions (even Spiritualism!) without a certain openness of mind. That doesn't mean I don't believe just because someone (or even myself) negates the power of the written word, and the belief itself is hard to write in words anyway.

So I have respect for all those religions or beliefs that exist, yet I believe one certain thing, and keep an open mind (within certain limits) as to whether that is the "right answer".

I believe faith and belief is a personal thing, and collectively beliefs need a lot of personal thought as to what to "do" with them. So when a large amount of people believe in one thing, they should not just follow the "herd" as to what that belief determines they do in life.

So personal choice, and faith and belief all come down to the individual and if you are strong enough to respect that, then your faith and belief will carry you through life enough to not worry about whether one religion, faith or belief is right or wrong.

 

Sound about right to me....

Although I dont have faith that god exists, i do have faith in other things that are unprovable (at least at the moment), such as other forms of life and existence that we are incapable of unrestanding.

As George Michael said "gotta have faith".

 

Its possible to have faith without a belief in God.
Many things are possible, I think philosopy is a more useful tool for furthering understanding of the human condition than religion.

Answering the original post I subcribe to science because the scientific method is about asking better and better questions in order to get better answers, and using this to build a body of knowledge to hopefully aid mankind. The benefits of science are many and tangible. The computer you are using now for instance.

I don't see religion providing this, it doesn't seem to have helped man to advance much in the last 2000 years. Frequently it is about accepting exisitng scripture and not questioning, which is the exact opposite of the above. I would ask people who take a large proportion of their beliefs from one book (the bible) to question where this came from, why were certain gospels left out, why has the church banned and burnt many texts ? What do the dead sea scrolls say ? People on this forum have already said its bad to study for the A+ from one source, how is your world belief any different ?

 

You put into words (and might i say VERY articulately) EXACTLY the way I feel.

Its a shame that people who feel like us cannot create our own "religion", but without actually knowing exactly what it is we believe, this would be pretty difficult. That said, I don't know if Id want the "religion" anyway, Its like you said, these things are pretty personal, and if you had to start pooling these beliefs together you would inevitably have to conform to some aspect you do not believe.

Thanks for that post. Its good to know I'm not the only one who you would classify as a "spiritualist", and not instantly put this under the "god" banner

 

Oops -sorry - 'Faith' is a difficult word. You can have faith in all sorts of things. But Faith (in God) usually means something more...?

It's fine to believe or have faith in things that are currently unprovable. Like believing in life on other worlds or that the Higgs Boson exists or whatever. One day, science may answer these questions for us. Faith in God is different. Science is absolutely useless for helping us prove or disprove God. We'll never know - that's the whole point. Unless of course we know...

 

Unfortunatley this is where the problems often start ! Many philosophers try to create bodies of work and improve the world. Sometimes these teachings are taken up by people with their own political motivations, turning these teachings into a religion/cult gives them power.

On a differnt note I'd look at Jeet Kune Do, this is Bruce Lees "Using no way as way", again ironically this was not supposed to be a Martial Art, but now is treated as one.

 

Nice idea, but not everyone is able to hold their own belief. Some people will happily sign up to the belief of others, or an other, without too much of a struggle. The result of this is often tragedy - cults, abuse, mass-suicide, murder... I'd love to leave the rest of you to believe as you will, but my conscience won't let me!

We're not all strong enough...

 

and thats just the catholic church !

Oh dear I've gone and done it now....

 

What I meant was we need to let personal belief guide our life and not let collective belief take precedence over that, as it creates exactly what you mentioned.

We're not all strong enough, because we become easily led by beliefs and structures that we never critically assess. And yes, that leads us down the road of educating people as to the "holistic", "joined-up" world that we live in. Though education as it is now, separates subjects into single entities with no overriding central core.

This is leading onto other discussions which I think are going away from what I said, that is, me personally. But I think if you are able to separate your self from the collective (if that is entirely possible I'm not so sure), then you can make choices and decisions from your heart instead of from the collective "head".

 

OK - I'll go with that and also return to the original topic.

I'm an atheist because, in a nut-shell, I don't have any reason not to be one. There's no little voice nagging away at me, no feeling that 'there must be more', no desire to join up with lots of others in something shared... I don't believe there is any meaning in life other than the meaning I give it, I don't think there is any definitive moral code other than the one I choose...

But, strangely enough, the life I have ended up leading, the life I have chosen, would probably not upset a Christian too much, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist or quite likely a Spiritualist...

Generally, I do the same sort of things as they might do, but it comes from somewhere else.

I'm probably going to burn in someone's Hell...

Go figure, I guess.

 

Nah, no burning in hell for you This is your place and you have made a stand and also chosen to be in that place. That's what I meant, choosing yourself, not choosing because of others.

 

Excellent - I'll cross your hell off the list...

Only another 5.99994587 billion to go then!