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Forums - Politics Discussion - Why Are You An Atheist?

Because common sense.



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Toxy said:
I was raised as a Christian.
As I grew older I began to question things. These questions led to: why is Christianity any more of a real concept than Judaism or Muslim?
Learning about religions that come and go also brought more questions. Hercules, Hades etc. are Greek myths. Myths are religions that no longer have a following. These myths often predate the current religions.

Religion is often considered to be real because of the texts that describe their deity. During each era, different religious factions have had conflict with one another because their text is the true 'message'.
If you look at political texts during these eras, both sides of each society has a bias against the other.
This often led to war, massacres, genocide etc.

War still occurs to this day due to religion. Religion also has a strong hold on politics which is wrong and just grants you a conservative leader that enforce their beliefs upon a nation because of an old book.
An old book that is not backed up by any evidence.
Books that are often misrepresented so people can use that religion for their own agenda, and to control the minds of millions.

I believe in what is real. What can be proven to be real. I enjoy Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, however, I know that they are fantasy.

I am an Atheist that follows what can be proven to be real. I even challenge social norms. Just because something has been normalised within a culture, does not make it the right thing. I believe in questioning the state of things and challenging them. I believe in progress. Sure there is much that can be learned from the past, such as: do not act like these people did.

I live in reality, not fantasy. My source of hope is educating myself, and hoping that others do the same. You can make a better world by challenging norms that have been established and generating equality within a society. Believing everything will be better (or worse) in the afterlife is all well and good. People should focus on the life that they know truly exists and focus on making that life the best and most positive thing they can. We definitely exist, that can be proven. We can make our lives and the lives of others better. Can we prove that one religion trumps another? Can we prove that any deity exists?

That is why I am an Atheist.

End of rant.


Good read.



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I don't believe in a God or God's as there is no evidence to suggest that they exist. If there is convincing evidence to suggest that the universe was created by a deity then I wouldn't be an atheist anymore.



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ohmylanta1003 said:
JWeinCom said:


I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I don't think that's what he meant.  I believe he meant that it is abundantly obvious, and any rational person should be able to see it, not that it's just his interpretation.  If that idea is offensive to other people, so be it, but if that's his opinion which the topic was asking for (again don't want to shove words in his mouth) I can't think of a clearer way to express it.


I know what he meant. But by saying it that way, it comes off as "I'm better than you and if you don't see it my way you're an idiot". To avoid any conflict, he should have said that it makes sense to HIM, which is what I said earlier. But he wanted to say it the first way, which I would consider a potshot.


No.  He should not have.  He should have said what he meant, and as far as I could tell he didn't mean "it makes sense to me".  He meant "it's common sense".  The topic was about why he's an atheist, and that was his reason, and that was the best way to express it.  He should not have to tiptoe around the issue because someone might be sensitive, especially in a topic that was seeking out atheist opinions. If his honest opinion offends some people, so be it.  He didn't attack any person, he commented on an idea.

When ideas are not based in common sense, we call them out. If someone advocated an obviously flawed political policy or fiscal policy or view on physics or science or if they said the Wii U will be the best selling console this generation, then we would say that person is not showing common sense.  It doesn't mean necessarily that people who believe it are stupid, but they are wrong on that particular topic.  I feel (if that makes you happier) that a theistic world view is not based on common sense, and I do not think that there is anything wrong with commenting on that opinion as we would an opinion on any other topic.



sc94597 said:
SlayerRondo said:
sc94597 said:
SlayerRondo said:

Rather than having reason's for being an Atheist, I think the important question is why do people believe in a god in the first place?

The best answer for why there is belief in the supernatural, afterlife, and god is the fear of death. 

I would say that is the number one reason why people want to believe in the existence of a god rather than a reason to believe in the existence of a god.

It's sad that people will suspend reason and common sense when it comes to the question of religion more than anything else. I used to think like this using the flimsiest of reasons to keep believing is the Christian god and not caring about an honest evaluation of the truth of my belief.

There are really smart people I know that come off as reasonable 99% of the time but when it comes to religion they seem to throw reason and common sense out the window.

I think it is an unrealistic standard to hold that all beliefs we all form are/should be based on reason or empirical data. Many beliefs that even the most scientifically minded people hold are based on intuition and emotional reasoning. A perfect example is String Theory. For decades now many physicists have been chasing it because it is a mathematically beautiful theory, but still there have not been many ideas about how we can test it. I don't think irrationality in beliefs, or intuitive beliefs are exclusive to religion, nor do I believe that intuitive reasoning has absolutely no use in even science (often it informs us in the direction we should look before we formulate our testable theory.) Furthermore, religion is a very complicated thing. A lot of it is allegorical, and it is very hard for people to separate the allegory (which can feel quite true to their lives) from the mysticism. The afterlife is not that unrealistic of a concept for many, and I don't think it is that irrational of a belief in the grand-scheme of things (despite myself not believing in a traditional one.)

Well, that all depends on what the belief is and how strongly you believe it.  There is a difference between having a hypothesis (which is what string theory is so far as I know) and to believe as absolute fact, and live your life by the rules of something that is not based in the data.

I believe it was Carl Sagan who was asked if aliens exist.  He said something along the lines of, "in my gut, I feel they do, but I try not to think with my gut".  It's ok for example to think that maybe there is an afterlife.  That is somewhat rational.  But, to live your whole life on the assumption you will get a second one, and to follow arbitray rules in order to attain it would be irrational.  



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God has not given not one predictable outcome, as science has given millions. God proving himself = 0. Science = to high to count.



JWeinCom said:
ohmylanta1003 said:


I know what he meant. But by saying it that way, it comes off as "I'm better than you and if you don't see it my way you're an idiot". To avoid any conflict, he should have said that it makes sense to HIM, which is what I said earlier. But he wanted to say it the first way, which I would consider a potshot.


No.  He should not have.  He should have said what he meant, and as far as I could tell he didn't mean "it makes sense to me".  He meant "it's common sense".  The topic was about why he's an atheist, and that was his reason, and that was the best way to express it.  He should not have to tiptoe around the issue because someone might be sensitive, especially in a topic that was seeking out atheist opinions. If his honest opinion offends some people, so be it.  He didn't attack any person, he commented on an idea.

When ideas are not based in common sense, we call them out. If someone advocated an obviously flawed political policy or fiscal policy or view on physics or science or if they said the Wii U will be the best selling console this generation, then we would say that person is not showing common sense.  It doesn't mean necessarily that people who believe it are stupid, but they are wrong on that particular topic.  I feel (if that makes you happier) that a theistic world view is not based on common sense, and I do not think that there is anything wrong with commenting on that opinion as we would an opinion on any other topic.


Understood. I don't take offense.



I bet the Wii U would sell more than 15M LTD by the end of 2015. He bet it would sell less. I lost.

JWeinCom said:

 But, to live your whole life on the assumption you will get a second one, and to follow arbitray rules in order to attain it would be irrational.  

I think out of hundreds of people I know who believe in the afterlife (or a god) in some form, only a dozen or so are that fanatical about it. And even they don't follow the bible strictly (I'm almost certain they've continually involve themselves in pre-marital sex, for example.) Internet and college athiests really do exaggerate the religiosity of modern Christians, in my opinion. At most I think everyone can recall the whacko fundamentalist family member or two, but most people are quite reasonable about how their religion affects their lives, and many people don't even really practice an "organized religion" but still believe in the afterlife and god in some fuzzy general way. 

As for string theory, the amount of dedication and love for the hypothesis is quite "religous" I'd say. But it isn't so unique in the field of physics. We have had a history of epicycles:  luminiferous aether (late 1800's), Kaluza-Klein theory (early 1900's), etc, etc where very scientifically-minded people just couldn't give up their hypotheses because of their emotional attachments.  It really tells a lot about human nature that the most empirical of the sciences also has a large amount of intuition and emotional reasoning in its academia, and in many cases fervently so. In some cases this is a bad thing which impedes the progress of science, in others, particularly when they are on the right path, it can help science flourish through sheer motivation. 



I didn't realize there were so many atheists on this site until this thread.



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I just see no reason to believe any sort of higher power exists that isn't just from a book or what have you. I need some sort of actual evidence to believe in god(s), and I've seen none. That's why I'm an atheist.