Theism Vs. Atheism?

Question

Two schools of thought...God or no God. Which is guilty of being wrong? Look at the two opposing beliefs critically like a detective; who has a reason to believe (motive), the chance to promote the belief (opportunity), and the ability to promote the belief (means)?

Religion: It sounds like something people would make up..."The most powerful awesomely great guy ever, loves us and we never really die." (motive) The religions of the world have traditionally controlled society, and still do. (opportunity) And religions breed and brainwash their members. (means)

Vs. Atheism...We are here for no reason, we are finite and suffer, we lose our loved ones, there is no justice, the world is full of hate and there really is a hole in the o-zone layer. (motive?) We are pariahs in society...it's okay to be any religion except no religion. (opportunity?)

Our money has "God" on it, and we have to regularly fight to keep the theory of evolution in public school, as opposed to creationism. (means?)

Theism is a selfish human creation.

Atheism is the honest search for truth, whatever it may be.

K BIZ, I fully understand that we, human animals, are fallible, and that philosophically, we cannot ever know anything for sure. I believe that more than you do. So I don't need to say "I'm convinced, but there was that one time I dreamed I could talk to dolphins, and turned out that wasn't true..." to preface every time I assert "the Bible is wrong."

Answer 1

Debate all you want, but there's no answer to it all. Atheism is a belief, just like theism. All the same constructs that support athiesm can be used to justify theism. In reality, we believe what we want to believe and justify those beliefs with personal observations to support those ideals. The problem lies with the fact that we cannot determine absolute truths. We can believe in things, such as Christianity or Buddhism, but due to the conflict that arises between these beliefs an absolute truth cannot be established. As a result, we live in an arbitrary world that may or may not exist as we see it. Our views are cluttered with conjecture, and what we have to say has very little truthful meaning.

Answer 2

i choose agnosticism. atheism like theism is for close-minded fools. the brightest scientists have never favored one over the other. they're just skeptics. one theistic argument for the existence of god is the cosmological argument which says that the universe has a beginning. big bang cosmology supports this claim. the atheist, to avoid the sting of this argument, proclaims that the universe is eternal. how can it be eternal when it began?the atheist says there could be a multiverse and this present universe is a by-product of a dying universe (this is science fiction with no scientific evidence too)you see my friend it requires more faith to believe the atheist than to believe the theist that theres a first cause. however, since i am in the position that pure knowledge and truth can only come from empirical evidence and deduction, i remain skeptic although i feel that the first cause theory is a more rational interpretation of reality.

Answer 3

Are you honestly seeking the truth? The truth is what it is, not what you want it to be. You cannot judge God by the imperfect people who follow him. God is not "Theism." He is God, and he is there whether you believe in him or not.
The Big Bang does not make logical sense as the ultimate explanation for our origins. It defies the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Furthermore they do not explain an eternal existence. The scientific laws of conservation do not allow for matter or energy to just appear or disappear, so anything that exists now, either existed for eternity or had an eternal creator. Something that is eternal does not have a beginning; therefore our universe must have an eternal creator. The universe existed as tiny super dense speck for an eternity and then suddenly exploded. What prompted it to explode? This requires some chain of events to cause the explosion, otherwise it would have continued in its tiny state forever. And a perpetually expanding and collapsing universe defies the laws of physics: an isolated thermodynamic model will approach a maximum value of entropy towards an ultimate state of INERT uniformity. No matter what way you spin it; you can try to explain it with some kind of quantum time or a multi-verse model, but you are only setting the problem off to the side.
What kills me is that people think that they have proven that God doesn't have to exists by proving that the universe had a scientific beginning, but by doing so they are only proving that God must exist.
Virtually nothing, then BANG BOOM; a universe is born. Sounds like something God would do to me. God is certainly not restricted to the laws of science, but he did create them. So it makes sense that he would make use of the science that he designed.
Does anyone get what I am saying. You have to open your mind up to a bigger law. Why protons, and electrons, and gravity and light? God is symbolic. The truest most powerful law is that of goodness and love. I believe that God created this universe and this life as a finite platform for Good and Evil to both exist so that we can make our decision. It would not be love if we were robots. God wants us to choose him, choose love. This finite platform was created because in it's unrestricted natural state Good utterly defeats Evil.
So the question, and the ultimate meaning of life reveal itself to be the most simple of questions. Which side are you on?
As human beings, we are hopelessly damaged. We are all finite, and proud; ultimately and inescapably self-centered. We are taught what is good, and we follow this throughout life, because it serves our best interest to feel good about ourselves. It suits our own fancy to feel like we are good people. But the most excellent way is selfless love. Good and evil cannot coexist, and so we must change to be with Good. This is way God sent us a way. He paid the price, so that our souls could be changed. So that even though we are broken and damaged in every way. We can make the choice for forgiveness; the choice for love. And when the equalizing flesh of this world passes away. We will truly know love, and we will coexist with it forever. This is what we long for all our lives: Peace on Earth, a perfect place. But it will never happen on this side of life, because human nature will never change.
So don't miss out on the purpose of your creation. Choose God. Choose Love. Choose Jesus.

Answer 4

If a "theist" finds out after he dies that he was wrong about God, then it doesn't matter. He's dead. He's gone. Game, set, and match.

But if an "atheist" finds out after he dies that HE was wrong about God ... well, to put it mildly, he's going to have some explaining to do to the Big Guy.

So the question I ask myself is: would I rather be a misinformed theist, or a misinformed atheist?

This is by no means the only reason why I believe in God. In fact, this thinking doesn't really drive my belief in God at all.

I have other reasons for believing in Him. Lots of them.

Answer 5

Interesting post...

Atheism can equally be said to be something people would make up (no God to hold you accountable to any moral standards; no absolute right and wrong; the Darwinian prime directive being to reproduce and spread your genes -- justification for sexual license etc)...

Theism vs Atheism?

This universe has many features that make more sense in the light of Theism (rather than Atheism).

For scientific and intellectual evidence for the existence of God, see http://www.godsci.org/gs/godsci/evidence.htm

I used to be an atheist. Over a period of time however, I grew convinced of the existence of the Christian God, and ultimately committed my life to Christ (e.g., see http://www.godsci.org/gs/chri/testimony/seek.html ).

Cordially,
John

Answer 6

wow, an intellligent post. the religious part is true up to a point but you must also extend it further. the motive you cite also carries with it responsibility. yes the greatest guy loves us but also demands much from us. and the more we do the more He demands. Its like still living at home with your parents for the rest of your life with the same rules, the same responsibilities, etc. as for being brainwashed, well i'll have to disagree with you, at least in my case. this was not something i was born and raised into and it was something i stayed away from because i couldn't stand the stink of hypocrisy which pervades the majority of churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. it was something i've given a lot of thought to and the funny thing is is that is was science which led me to christianity and God. and the more science reaches out the more they prove the existence of God and the truthfullness of His Word.

As for keeping evolution in or out of schools, can someone please help me discover just when they changed it from the THEORY of evolution to fact? I missed that news somewhere. Because it seems to me that all evolution is is a guess. A guess in which Darwin himself renounced in his later years. A guess which is taught to students as proven fact. Hmmm, looks like its the atheists who are doing the brainwashing here.

Answer 7

Anti Theism... I just think its funny that there is a belief that starts with a premise in the absence of or the opposite of the belief in something. It's like the "we don't believe belief".
a collection of people who say "We don't know what's out there, but we're sure there is no God!"

Or even funnier, agnostics: "What, no God? Don't know about that! - I know nothing."

It's just a bit silly for me.
-Theism all the way to the bank baby!

Answer 8

"Theism is a selfish human creation."

There is no more selfish human than a liberal atheist.

"Atheism is the honest search for truth, whatever it may be."

There is nothing honest about saying that the Bible is DEFINITELY wrong, especially when you knowingly say that you are not sure what the truth is because you haven't found it yet.

An truely honest person has to say that God is at least a possibility, or else they are intellecually dishonest.

Answer 9

Ur full of sh*t first of all. Second of all, just because we don't believe in a god it doesn't mean that we are doomed to suffer and lose our loved ones in a world full of hate & injustice. Last time I remember christians, jews, muslims, etc. suffer and lose loved ones just like atheists. Looks like their "gods" really think they're special? Injustices and hate stem from religion too so where are you going with that? & I don't really follow your detective cr*p either so simplify or at least use more coherent connotations.

Answer 10

I prefer to simply examine the evidence the same way an unbiased jury would. If god were ever brought to trial and accused of existing, he would be found "not guilty" based on the lack of any credible evidence.

That really is the same standard we all apply in our daily lives on other matters.