| A classic and passionate topic with a tweak. I've seen around the web the usual atheist trash talk but a lot of it appears to me as based off a strawman of what religion is. I used to believe I was an atheist until I started reading philosophy and actually got to read the reasons behind "god" as a concept. It appeared as a rational concept to me so I started digging more into what Christianity is. I can not believe that Jesus be God, but I can see the beauty of the christian religion. So I ended up thinking constantly about God but never actually managed to be religious. Since then I've seen that many so-called atheist criticize religion but have a very shallow view on what it actually is. Back to the point: what do you actually know about a given religion? Have you read its scriptures? Thought about its rituals? Studied its theology, history and/or art? I don't care about convincing anyone about God's existence because it is a sterile topic, I want to read about the atheist experience in regards to religion. |
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| I was a Christian growing up and then in High school I switched to Zen for a bit, simply to try and get myself up out of my slumps, as it is focused on finding oneself. While I'm not an athiest but more of an agnostic, there are reasons to why I choose not to be. I have read quite a few religious texts as well as the old and new testament. What I have gotten out of it is multiple contradictions and multiple instances that have been proven wrong; the most infamous being the flat earth, in which the church executed believers until it got out of hand. This is not me saying everything in the bible is wrong, as it is supposed to be a moral compass rather than a history book, but I know Jesus of Nazerath was a real person. While I have no issues with people believing in any god or gods that they wish to. My issue I have always had with religion is the constant hypocrisy of the believers. Such as that Christianity is a peace preaching, and love preaching religion BUT the people of it in which I have seen are some of the most hateful and rude people I have come in to contact with. I live in the bible-belt of the United States, since I'm not religious, I don't go to church but 90% of the town does. I cannot tell you how many times I have been cut off and flipped off by cowboy hat wearing peeps coming out of the church parking lot. There is also the long running history with religion with corruption, stemming from the Medieval ages around the time of the term of Pope Gregory around 1378, during this time the kings would appoint their friends into church positions, much like Trump has done. Not all, but many preists throughout history have used the word of God to line their pocket, much like Pastor Kenneth Copeland who has a 760 mil dollar net worth, large mansion, and multiple private jets; all of which he spent using church money. Don't get me started on the genocides, murders, mass homocides, discrimination, thieving, etc. etc. that has been done in the name of one god or another. Lord knows how many people here have been disowned because they came out to their parents. From the people I know, I know about 4. Just believe what you believe. Don't hate people or belittle people because they believe differently. This is what most religions say in their holy books, but if we actually started doing that. The world would be a much better place I believe. |
krazykombatApr 19, 2020 12:59 PM
| Metal, games, and good friends make life worth living Discord: kingkrazy#0336 |
| OP, you got us....us atheist actually KNOW god is real, but we are doing the Devil's work in order to get innocent Christians to stop believing! Our plan was PERFECT! But you found us out, oh well. |
krazykombat said: Words To genuinely be religious does recquire to think that it is the truth, at least in the abrahamic tradition. So it's not surprising that such sort of malice can come out of it. I do disagree with you in regards that religion is supposed to make people better. Religion gives us a place in the world and in regards to such place is how we behave amongst each other. But it doesn't really imply that it'll make you a good person -whatever that means-. |
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| OP you might be like me. Look up deism and it may strike a familiar tune within you. |
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--ALEX-- said: Read the last sentence in my OP and then go hide your face in the freezerOP, you got us....us atheist actually KNOW god is real, but we are doing the Devil's work in order to get innocent Christians to stop believing! Our plan was PERFECT! But you found us out, oh well. |
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| well i can believe that there are gods since the simulation hypothesis is very interesting especially as a computer related course graduate although if you know philosophy then did you know The Problem of Evil? so there might be god/s but they are not worth worshiping imo also i grow up in a religious country, i did not read the bible directly (i think i never fully read a book in my life lol) but religious classes from elementary to a catholic college as well as going to churches regularly until college will give you those info anyway |
deg said: Then you're not really athest, are you?well i can believe that there are gods >The problem of evil Christianity gets rid of it when it possits free will. Let me ask you this question, lets say the State and the police can predict when a crime will occur and the police can proactively arrest these people before they commit the crime, creating a crime free society that doesn't permit neither free action nor free thought. Would you feel at ease in this state? Knowing that you literally can not have bad thoughts because otherwise you will end up locked away? |
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--ALEX-- said: OP, you got us....us atheist actually KNOW god is real, but we are doing the Devil's work in order to get innocent Christians to stop believing! Our plan was PERFECT! But you found us out, oh well. Dude, Shhhh! You're gonna be in so much trouble at the next secret atheist meeting. I bet the ghost of Dawkins won't even let you have any Christian baby blood. |
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| Religion is naught but a tool with which those apt at life control the populous. It is also a never ending circle of surrender in the face of all that is unknown for by the words of religious folk, Čudni su putevi Gospodnji or as it would be in English, Strange are the ways of the Lord. Everything else holds absolutely no relevance in the world of man who so verily succeeds in life. Amen! |
  “The most shameless thing in the world is political power that can be inherited regardless of ability or talent!” |
| I haven't really got any experiences. But I don't believe in any kind of god because I'd personally prefer to rely on myself, than some holy being. I don't like pushing the blame of the way things happen on something unknown, I'd rather accept that humanity is evil. I guess my atheism is an ultimate form of pessimism. |
| No |
UnoPuntoCinco said: deg said: Then you're not really athest, are you?well i can believe that there are gods >The problem of evil Christianity gets rid of it when it possits free will. Let me ask you this question, lets say the State and the police can predict when a crime will occur and the police can proactively arrest these people before they commit the crime, creating a crime free society that doesn't permit neither free action nor free thought. Would you feel at ease in this state? Knowing that you literally can not have bad thoughts because otherwise you will end up locked away? ye im not an atheist but an agnostic but still people like here on MAL likes to call me one lol the free will defense only applies to moral evil (human actions/choices) but there is also natural evil like natural disasters (except the man made climate change right now) and diseases especially hereditary ones cannot result because of free will or human power to choose also there is the evidential problem of evil that why there is so much and severe evils anyway? why the world is not designed to have none deadly evil for example? those ideas are more elaborated on a better way than i can here |
Religion originally formed to what historians refer to as the pessimistic era in which the fundamentals of religion were such that gods created life and the world but subsequently abandoned it and life was all that one got. Then afterwards the optimistic era formed, this was such as what we see with the early Greeks, Romans, Judaism and eventually Christianity and is the religious era we are still in. In my personal opinion, upon studying the major religions as well as religions that are no longer worshipped, religion was formed to explain the unknown as human beings fundamentally fear what they do not know, as do most animals in the world. To answer the big questions; where did we come from and what is the point of life. However, reading the religious texts, in them, they do state how their believers should act and treat others. Does worshipping a religion make you a good person. You can't pay me enough to say yes. Though, reading the New Testament as well as studying the Five Virtues, and reading the Vedas, if people were to follow the teachings as they are given they should be, by societies standards of morality, a decent person. As the bible states to love thy neighbor and thy enemy. The Quran says to give money to the less fortunate, and the Five Virtues states to let go of wordly possesions in favor of a more spiritual one. Though the point of the religious texts are highly disagreed about upon historians and theologists alike as people tend to argue that they are indeed a history book that documents creation or that they are more of used as a moral compass to guide the believers to either be fit for paradise or to be a "good" person. And then some do of course argue that its a fairy tale. Edit: sorry if I seem rude, not trying to be. I'm enjoying our debate/conversation. |
| Metal, games, and good friends make life worth living Discord: kingkrazy#0336 |
| I do not need to study religion as I have studied the basics of science instead. |
| My family forced religious studies onto me when I was a child and at the time I believed it was all true but then I grew up and started to see religion as a manipulation for a population who can't think for themselves. I respect the culture/history and individual beliefs if it makes them happier but a lot of rituals are outdated and don't make any sense anymore unless it's for holding something over people and make them feel inferior if they don't do certain things as well as switching responsibility for their life onto higher power. |
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deg said: Is this simply a general disinterest aimed towards such works or an inability on your end caused by health issues?(i think i never fully read a book in my life lol) |
“The most shameless thing in the world is political power that can be inherited regardless of ability or talent!” |
| I’m curious to know how you think non believers strawman religion. What I will admit is that some of them lean on possibly the worst, literalist, fundamentalist interpretation of religion, but that’s what a lot of people’s experience of religion is. I wasn’t taught that Noah’s arc was a beautiful allegory. I was told that the entire world literally flooded and that Noah had the engineering know to build an arc that could contain 7 of every clean animal and 2 of every dirty animal. I was told that God spent one day creating the universe and 5 days creating earth as it is, filled with life. I was told that creationism is true and that evolution was false. Etc. But hey, I get it. A fair amount of Christians take a lot of the text to be metaphorical, and fundamentalists being silly doesn’t imply that every Christian believes that the universe is 6,000 years old. I haven’t deep dived into a particular religion other than what I was taught as a kid. What I became interested in was whether there were any strong arguments for one of the philosopher’s gods. Aristotelian potentiality arguments, arguing from the principle of sufficient reason, prime mover, the cosmological argument, the watchmaker, fine tuning, the teleological argument, the moral argument, and worst of all Pascal’s wager or the ontological argument. I examined all of them and have problems with all of them. Of course, people failing to make valid and sound arguments for a god doesn’t mean such a god doesn’t exist. It just means that I have no rational reason to believe that one does until I’ve been presented with a good reason. But meanwhile, I have no reason to take any god concept seriously, and I believe I put in more effort than most in justifying what I was taught as a kid. For now, I gain enough fulfillment out of my life from secular ways of thinking. There’s no real hole in my life that I yearn for a god to fill. In fact, even if one existed and created me with some purpose, I would reject that purpose unless given a good reason to care for what that god wants out of me. This may be strange to believers, but the way I see it, it'd be no different than my parents having procreated to create me with an intended purpose for me in mind. I'd only care for the purpose they laid out if it would be actually fulfilling for me to live out. |
| Vague controversial points on islamic teachings. Some rare bits on asian religions. Somewhat about Roman and Greek gods. More on christianity. What matters the most to me is imagery, what I may encounter in art, so I focused on that. |
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Luchse said: deg said: Is this simply a general disinterest aimed towards such works or an inability on your end caused by health issues?(i think i never fully read a book in my life lol) i only started to develop this hereditary schizophrenia back in college i think so nah its just lack of interest on fully reading a book im more interested on just learning the basic idea or gist of something i read |
| @krazykombat I disagree in that religion strives to explain the unknown when a good part of christian theology is mysticism that ultimately denies any sort of "knowledge" about God. For example Saint John of the Cross saying that the knowledge of God is non-knowledge. I don't know if there are analogies of this tradition in other religions. I would say that on the other hand, religious narrations are not used to explained the unknown but the known. To give a systematic account of how the reality around us might be, irregardless of how badly reasoned they are. In this sense a religious text such as Genesis or Theogony put together different aspects of a people's reality and "explain" them. I think it is Natural Science that which help us explain the unknown. Seijatachiiii said: Did you measure God yet?I do not need to study religion as I have studied the basics of science instead. |
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Psajdak said: Enough to know that religion is a lie, and giant waste of time. Are you questioning the credentials of L Ron. Hubbards work? I'l let you know that religion is no scam and especially not scientology. |
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| @UnoPuntoCinco True true, Abrahamic religions do talk about the mysticism. Examples of that in which we see today would be the talk of Gods plan of the world and how it unknown to us yet known to the father. I still agree with my point, yes science tries to explain the unknown and has for the longest time, inlcuding back when scientists were the equivilent to priests and religious scholars, but for me religion tends to give answers to everything in which people dont know the answer to. As originally lightning was thought to be the gods wrath until we created the hypothesis of the positive and negative charge in the clouds clashing. My knowledge of all these subjects and is kinda meh. I am a history major and enjoy researching stuff in my freetime but religion has never been an interest to me. But from my understanding, the whole point of religion, or rather the point of their holy books that account the basics of such are a matter of debate even within the religions themselves, for example, each pope tends to interpret texts differently than others. Though correct me if I'm wrong. |
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| @Freshell I regards to the fallibility of philosophers' arguments for god, they're arguments after all, not proofs. But since concepts as filmsy such as justice or goodness are taken seriously by a lot of people; I don't see why other concepts just as filmsy and as important such as God should not. I don't mean to say that everyone should think about god, but if we disregard that God exist because we can't sense it, why do we posit that Justices does exist? Schiller said that the religious feeling didn't come from the arguments of theologians, but from us facing the Infinite. In regards to your last point about the hypothetic existence of God, are you admitting that atheism is a choice and that atheists don't want god to exist? |
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| Back when I was in HS i went to religion classes for about 6 years (although I was atheist even back then) and I also read some of the bible. I was just curious to find out why/what people believe. I also have a friend who is super religious and we sometimes discuss about god and all. I observed that religion is more of a lifestyle instead of an actualy belief who/how humans were created. Religion is like your daily routine of doing things in a certain way and living by certain set of morals. Those values/morals come from religion for those people, while we atheists derive them from something else (like law, autorities, etc.). Honestly religious people and atheists are not much different (unless they are extremists that is). We are all humas who eat, sleep, shit, repeat. Until we eventually die. |
| Christianity's beauty only stems from the fact that history revolves around it, and not the other way around. Most of the scriptures contradict each other, the book is known to have been written by dozens of people that feel 'enlightened' (we all know about those people that feel enlightened in history books, don't we?) and a whole council was arranged to fabricate the religion to the core. Other than the fact that the rituals in Christianity are pretty boring. Let's all just ignore all that, and focus on the meat of the subject. The concept of God is real and is ever-present. Christianity offers a warped view of God with their multi-faceted "Divine Powers" of the Catholic Church (mind you, every church is orthodox to itself), so it clearly is not just plain false, but infinitely stupid. The smack down: Islam takes all what I have just pointed at Christianity, and did it right. |
UnoPuntoCinco said: @Freshell I regards to the fallibility of philosophers' arguments for god, they're arguments after all, not proofs. But since concepts as filmsy such as justice or goodness are taken seriously by a lot of people; I don't see why other concepts just as filmsy and as important such as God should not. I don't mean to say that everyone should think about god, but if we disregard that God exist because we can't sense it, why do we posit that Justices does exist? I don't disregard God because I can't sense God. I can't see air. I believe air exists. I can't directly perceive atoms with any of my senses. I believe atoms exist because of the novel, testable predictions one can make when assuming a certain model of atoms. All I care about is whether a strong argument can be made for his existence. This can come in the form of a deductive argument, as with the ontological argument, or it can come in the form of an inductive argument, as with the fine tuning argument. Schiller said that the religious feeling didn't come from the arguments of theologians, but from us facing the Infinite. Well, I haven't been exposed to the guy's thinking, so I don't exactly know what you're on about with that, sorry to say. I'd be open to you elaborating though. In regards to your last point about the hypothetic existence of God, are you admitting that atheism is a choice, and that atheists don't want god to exist? No. What I believe is that if an entity X created me with some intention in mind, that I shouldn't rationally care unless following through with their intentions would create more fulfillment in my life. It is possible that a God created me and created me with an intention that would be maximally fulfilling for me to live out. In that case, nice. I'll do what he wants. If not, then why should I care? Again, it shouldn't be taken for granted that just because I was created with a purpose that I ought to follow that purpose. My parents created me, and if they created me with a purpose in mind, it would still be up to me as to whether I want to follow through on it, and my criteria on the matter would remain the same: would following through on my assigned purpose actually be fulfilling? |
UnoPuntoCinco said: Seijatachiiii said: Did you measure God yet?I do not need to study religion as I have studied the basics of science instead. To be honest, i'm a bit confused about this question, can you explain further? |
| You know you aren't making any clever question here and you're not putting anyone in an uncomfortable position. For me religion is similar to astrology and zodiac signs. It's just another "structure" that attempts to calm the human mind from the uncertainty of life and the sad certainty of death and the inability to predict the future as well.So have YOU read history about how organized religion prevailed? About how a person is christian for example but mocks astrology? And as a matter of fact living in a country where religion is a huge part of everyone's life and being a christian myself for some years in my early life I can tell you that I have read and studied a lot about several religions and civilizations (since i'm a big history fan).It doesn't make any difference. Αctually it makes me to not want to believe even more. But eventually I grew up, I read more, gained critical thinking of my own and decided that for me there's no god. And if there is one, so be it...... Never tried to convince anyone about my beliefs and I respect the fact you don't care either but I think I have the right to criticize religion and use science and the laws of physics to explain things. Seijatachiiii said: I do not need to study religion as I have studied the basics of science instead. savage |
| Science creates models of natural phenomena through units, these units it obtains measuring. Religion is about god, if science knew anything about god, it would be able to measure it. You've implied that you have no use for religion, this would mean science can the work of religion. Have you measured god? @Freshell Your example on air is invalid because we can sense air, with our sense of touch. We know air exists because we can measure its speed, pressure, humidity and so on. There isn't any infallible argument about the existence of God, as Kant's shown. And this is what connects it to my point about Schiller: that belief springs out of a feeling, not out of reasoning. And the same I would say goes in regards to morality and ethics: if we examine our secular dogmas, they're very filmsy and contradictory; we believe in them because we feel like it's the right thing not because we've thoroughy created a perfectly logical and scientific system of morality and politics. In this sense I would say that atheists and religious people are very similar as @RandomFriday said, they both live their lives based off contradictory and shaky beliefs |
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