I take more comfort in atheism
 

The idea that we all become stardust from whence we came, that the particles that composed us at one point can go on to form new life, or stars, or join any other celestial body in the Universe. IN this sense, we never really are gone, even if the collection of matter that came together to form us will never be configured the same way again.

I prefer this outcome to one of a vengeful God who will send someone like Jeffrey Dahmer to heaven for kissing his ass in the last month of his life, while I go through life trying to be a good person and living by a code that I find morally decent (one that doesn't embrace many of God's barbaric (imo) teachings) and will end up in hell.

What do you guys think? Religious and non-religious people alike.


and I see there's a religious thread just above mine lol. If you guys wanna merge this ish, i'm ok with it

I think the sooner everyone stops worrying about whether or not their personal belief in whatever bring peace to their own soul is 'right' or not is when things will actually start getting better for all of us.

It's a fun thing to discuss, even if it has no bearing on what actually happens to us all. You know what you're getting into by coming into this thread, so I'm not sure why you'd complain about the topic. :usehead:

I feel anyone who takes pride in having the correct beliefs is acting like the most annoying sort of Protestant. It's action that matter, yet unfortunately most (atheists) act as though by ditching Jesus they can out-Jesus Christians in shouting, yelling, & boasting how elite they are for holding such egalitarian (meaning secular humanist) beliefs.

It's annoying & I want no part of it.

So by posting my beliefs and why I believe them, I'm attempting to "out-Jesus" Christians? I explained why I disagree with Christianity on a personal moral level, how is that boasting my elitism? Seems to me you read into it the way you wanted to.

I don't understand the defensiveness, I didn't attack Christians and try to convert them, I didn't try to use science to prove Christianity irrational. You guys are too focused on pussy-footing around the subject, I explained why I don't take comfort in a widely accepted afterlife and that's it. Maybe next time leave your preconceived notions at the door cause I don't think you know what the **** you're talking about.

Fine, congratulations, good for you. As for the attitude, some pointers for the future to help you avoid it.

Use:
"I don't believe in God, I find comfort enough in being one with the universe"

Then if someone says talks about the awesomeness of religions you can point out whatever you think is immoral.

As opposed to..

"Energy of the universe, THAT'S better than kissing God's ass, amirite?"

For your first post.

Nah, I like my approach. I condense things into one post, rather than waiting to be prompted for the appropriate response.

Seeing as how the topic was why I find moral comfort in one over another, it makes sense to explain why I find one side lacking in my moral beliefs, and the other fitting more with my beliefs.

Those aren't the two sides though.

Atheism is not believing in god of any kind, not just the vengeful ones.

You could be a theist and make exactly the same points you made.

So it came across as the angry/stuck-up atheist focusing on the ills of religion rather than the possibility of afterlife/dieties etc right off the bat.

No I agree, but I was raised in a Christian family and am most intimately familiar with that religion. I probably should have specified Christianity in the topic, though many other religions seem to have archaic and bigoted beliefs that I'm not cool with either.

Atheism appeals to me not only because I find it logical, but because I don't have to subscribe to indoctrinating beliefs. Maybe I'm just stubborn, but I'm not willing to uncompromisingly put my faith in one book to define who I am and what I believe in.

You do realise that you can believe in a god without subscribing to a religion don't you?

What I'm saying is rejecting religion isn't the reason you're an atheist. Believers outside of religions, agnostics or just spiritual people reject religion too and don't subscribe to indoctrinating beliefs.

By all means, point out the flaws in religion. But those are the reasons you are not religious. Not the reasons you are an atheist.

I am an atheist because I require proof or some sort of indication of proof before I believe something. Simply the possibility of a God's existence isn't enough for me. The closest we have are the Laws of Physics and explaining the origins of them.

But this thread is focused on the moral aspects of structured religion, which is why I emphasized them as opposed to the scientific aspects.

There you go then. I don't disagree with you.

You couldn't understand the less than welcoming response.

Your first post was a statement that seemed to be justifying itself by picking on ONE alternative.

Replies

Do you see it?

Hopefully you do, because it'll hep you if you want deeper responses which I assume you're looking for.

Happy hunting!

I conceded to that point and agreed with you on the other page, and then went on to specify that I was only covering Christianity, so it's now public knowledge. But that's not what the other posters were complaining about; they made the erroneous assumption that I was preaching from my high horse that I was the only right one, which is funny cause I encouraged discussion about it at the end of my post:

I would love it if there was some kind of happy afterlife where I got to be reunited with anyone I've ever known who has died. I would take a hell of a lot of comfort in knowing such a thing were true. But like the old saying goes, "Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first."

I'm an atheist not because that's what I want to be true, but rather because I think it's what's most likely to be true.

Another thing that irritates me about it all that you touched on a bit, is that I don't think I necessarily chose to not believe so much, as I'm skeptical by nature. I don't even believe in the concept of free will, so to suggest that I can choose to believe in a God is absurd to me.


I would love that too, so long as I could just be a good person in the modern sense (caring, tolerant, selfless). I think these sort of values bring about the most happiness in others, and are some of the most admirable traits that a person can have.

^ Yes. ^

:)

I agree. My thinking has really changed over the years. I was never really religious, but in the last few years, I've grown unafraid to call myself an atheist instead of agnostic. A big part of it was fearing that there could be a god, and I would obviously rather end up in heaven than hell. That's not an issue anymore, and am quite comfortable with the idea of this being it.

I don't know what I am but I don't think there could be anything more disgusting than any part of me living on forever. 70 years or whatever is bad enough. And who cares if our atoms return to the stars? It's not like your brain is going to know anything about it.

i may be way to new to put my neck out there like this but I can tell you right now, with out a doubt that there is more going on than meets the eye, I have had experiences my self that are far out there, and I am not a crazy crystal worshiper or even a jesus freak, just for about two weeks in my life I either went completely nuts, or I was shown that there is more, BUT I have no idea what, there is way more disinformation out there than truth, all I can say for sure is that we have not got all of the pieces. and a lot of the ones we do have go together to paint a big picture rather than being two seperate theories most of them are partial truths to a bigger picture.

One other thing, for those that believe in science only, please understand that a whole lot of things that are presented as fact have nothing but a smart mans idea behind it, and even worse some of the most trusted scientist on the planet have exagerated truths and presented them as facts. Evolution is one of the most lied about and missunderstood topics out there, reaal research will show that there are so many holes in evolution it is just as much of a faith based religion as the christian bible.

I do not believe much of anything I read on the internet, so no offense will be taken if you find this to be a bunch of B.S.

In Sandy Valley Nevada my father was in a bar fight over a women, (who was trying to have him killed) and he was stabbed so many times in the back that now when he takes his shirt off it looks like a road map, if I remember right I think it was like 16 or so, he died on the life flight, on its way to umc medical center, they managed to bring him back after being dead for a little over a minute, he also died for a much longer time in ICU, I do not know off of the top of my head how long it was, but I think it was just under or over 3 minutes... I will double check and edit this post, its just a little late to confirm over the phone, any ways, my Dad does not believe in God, he is very litteral, very straight forward and the type of guy that if he speaks you listen and you just know he is not lying. He has no storys that are hard to believe, no storys of ghosts or any wierd stuff like that, just that when he died both times he watched him self being worked on both in the helicopter and in the e.r a story I am sure you have heard before, he told me that he had the choice to leave, and the second time he almost did chose to, he said that the only thing that made him stay was revenge. but he told me he was not afraid at all. And he lives every day like he just isnt scared of death, he is 63 and just recently rode a crotch rocket from mid state nevada to arizona and back, by him self straight through. He does not believe in God. but he said with out a doubt when you die, your not done.

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I'm hungover, so allow me to be brief:

1. You disagree on moral grounds.

2. Morality is a fundamentally religious concept.

3. The entire point of any given moral system is it's "the best".

Unproven assertion.

Unproven assertion.

1. Correct.

2. Incorrect. Morality is fundamentally a societal concept.

3. Can you expound on that?

slappyjenkins, I think you will find this book fascinating. It's about "missing links", experimental (controlled) evolution and such. The theory of evolution went long way since Darwin's days.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...w_on_Earth.JPG

Have you ever read Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan? Morality as a societal concept is a central theme, but more specifically, political morality. I'm certain that Hobbes was an atheist based on statements he makes in there.

That doesn't need to be proven.

Your morals are the best. If you genuinely thought they weren't then you wouldn't have them to begin with.

If you change your morals, you change it to the best one. If your morals include "my morals aren't necessarily the best" then you're still following your set of morals, which are the best.

I have not, although reading Wikipedia's brief summary and some excerpts, I can certainly say that I stand by some of his positions, and not so much others :D.

I'm definitely in agreement with this section though:
What I found interesting about the book was that he advocated for a holistic religion determined by the sovereign, if they should so choose. Obviously something that I would completely disagree with, but interesting nonetheless.

Sure it does. He's making an assertion, he needs to back it up.

I see a lot of assumptions there. Who's to say people always change their morals to "the best" ones? Who's to say you can't have a set of morals while still believing they are equal to some other set of morals?

sleepyjenkins
The egg, reptiles had it before the chicken ever existed. It is just a leathery hide. Before that, amphibian like with just membranes, and so on.

Have you? Which is why it's evolution of populations gradually over time, not two members of an entirely new species suddenly appearing overnight with the ability to lay eggs that couldn't before out of nowhere.

Number of reasons. Tigers are solitary, sexual reproducing animals, already have massive amounts of inbreeding and still being encroched upon by people.

About 500 cane toads were introduced in australia 60 or so years back. There are now over 200 million.

That isn't the theory of evolution. Two members suddenly appearing as a new species and being completely isolated isn't part of it.

You REALLY need to read up on the basics.

Abiogenesis, (if it did occur), would result in self replicating proteins initially, which would eventually result in the first single celled organism. But there is no evidence for this as yet, unlike evolution.

The random events in evolution are slight mutations in an already existing dna strand, or selecting one end of an extreme of an existing characteristic. Not spawning of fully formed animals.

A single celled organism would have had to somehow become a multicellular organism. Perhaps by incomplete asexual reproduction.

You can call the single celled organism a baby if you want.

You REALLY need to go over the basics. AT no point did monkeys give birth to people. GRADUAL change.

That isn't the only other solution by far. Evolution is one other alternative.

I will agree with essentially most of what you said, and I'm finding sleepyjenkins' post a little too overwhelming to respond to, and I mean that in a completely un-insulting way. I am, personally, just not good at taking on large paragraphs covering a gamut of topics, I find it difficult to keep my thoughts focused without resorting to post dissection, which everyone hates. But if we want to tackle one subject at a time I think we can be more thorough about it.

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There's no concrete proof of Creationsm either.

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Oh God :bonkhead: LOL. Please read the f*cking Dawkins' book :laughing:. It's subtitled "The Evidence For Evolution".

I'm pointing out the massive flaws in your standpoint. I'm not going to try to teach you evolution, if you're really interested you'll do that yourself, if not I'll be wasting my time. I'm just highlighting the areas you clearly have no grasp of of the opposing argument. I'm not presenting a thesis.

Your arguments are based off statements that two fully formed members of one species randomly appear in an instant NO-ONE is making this statement, you are justifying yourself by discrediting ideas you THINK constitute of evolution, not what it actually is.

As for evidence there is genetic and fossil evidence. Some of it beyond that is theorising what might have happened (origin of multicelled organisms for example) but I'm just illustrating to you that the argument isn't "suddenly an alligator appears from pond scum".

How about the fact that fossil records SHOW gradual change in populations over time?
There are ancestors of humans which are not ape, nor humans. Would that classify as a missing link? Would you only be satisfied if we had a fossil example from every generation of every species to have ever existed? Unfortunately that isn't going to happen due to how unlikely fossils are to form in the first place.

The trouble is with events that take a long time/ have occured in the past is that you can't observed them occurring in front of you.
I assume for example you support the big bang theory? Or that the roman empire existed? We can see evidence left behind, even if we can't see it occurring in front of us.

By proof do you mean experimental proof? Unfortunately, like I said above, past events/long period events can't be experimentally proven or observed in real time because we only live so long.

But you can't dismiss it yet, because your understanding of the subject is flawed to start with.

Heres an example of populations diverging:
Speciation in real time

Why on earth do you keep going on about 2. No-one is claiming that only 2 popped into existence. You brought it up and then ...disproved it. I agree, 2 is a ridiculous number.

I was just showing you don't need over 7,000 members of a species to ensure population growth.

Don't get snappy. You were completely wrong. Read about it. No-one has ever been convinced about something else just from reading forum post they are all to ready to defend themselves against. If you want to learn you'll read about it. Then you can make valid points against evolution, because there are some.

My point is no one is claiming crocs spawned randomly out of pond scum.

Lungfish: fish with lungs alive today
Lungfish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bold is you either exaggerating or not understanding. I can't tell.

You've clearly taken my post personally. I'm sorry but you clearly illustrated you don't understand the theory. Understand it then discredit it, don't attack just what you think it might be.

The rest of you original post was well thought out though and was a nice read.

By the way, evolution doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a God. If you want there to be a creator you could theorise that they caused biogenesis(the seed of all life), or even guided evolution if you were so inclined.

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I'm not trying to disprove God, or discredit your faith. I did just focus on some aspects of your post (not the god or faith bits but what you think evolution is), because they were inaccurate or incorrect. If that makes me an ass so be it. The bits I didn't respond to in your first post was what I either agreed with or didn't have a problem with.

You wanted a fish with lungs like it was a requirement for you, so that's what I showed you.

If you think I'm desperate that's fine too.

It's a shame you won't look into it more though. You win I guess.

In my opinion if you know what the actual theory of evolution is (rather than a couple of disjointed arguments against it) then you'll have more success trying to discredit it.

Either that, or it looks some of the reasons you believe in God are based on misunderstanding evolution. And then if you still think it's a sham then your arguments will be stronger for it.

That's all.

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