Part 2 of Non-believers question...?

Question

So, if you are willing to admit that you don't understand everything, and that there MAY be a possibility that there was a creator, something more to this life...

Why would you choose to not believe? What if you are wrong? What if you are turning down your oppertunity to God and happiness every day, just so that you can hang on to your non-belief?

And yes, I admit I don't know everything. I just know what I feel in my heart and in my soul, and leave the rest of the questions alone, because I could never understand all there is to know about my creator.

Have any of you thought about what it is that us "religious fanatics" really feel inside? That we may be just as intelligent as you, but that we have love, and peace, and joy, and hope? NO, I am not saying that you aren't capable of love or positive emotions. Please don't play that card. I'm just saying that Christians have a different sort of inner peace that you may not understand.

Answer 1

Tired, old, non-argument.

You can't be sure that there is a life after death, unless you claim to know everything, so aren't you wasting your life worshipping an imaginary super-Being?

Your sacrificing a life that you have, for the sake of a potential life that you might get (however unlikely that is)... Smart.

Answer 2

The way that you ask the question suggests that you're assuming that the problem is in non-believers' lack of understanding of the issues. That's wrong: it is the believers, yourself included (no offense) whose lack of understanding causes the friction between believers and non-believers.

Part of your problem in understanding this is in the "Pascal's Wager" stuff in your second paragraph. You really need to read more about the topic before you write this kind of thing, as that makes it clear that you're missing some basic understanding.

As to why I "choose not to believe", it is of course for the same reason that I choose not to believe in Santa Claus - the complete lack of evidence. In light of that, it should be quite obvious why non-believers don't believe, and you should be putting your effort into understanding why believers believer.

In a couple of other places you reveal your misunderstanding. First, in the first paragraph you say of the possibility that there is a creator that it would be "something more to this life". The sense that a creator would be "more" is an ungrounded assumption. I certainly think that the universe would be "less", not "more" if there were a creator. Similarly, in your last sentence you suggest that nonbelievers fail to understand Christians' "inner peace". If we accept that Christians do have "inner peace" (possible, but I'm not sure I'll buy it), that doesn't mean that the Christians understand it better than do the non-believers. I see a lot of certainty among believers, which I imagine might make them feel more peaceful, but they don't understand it as well as I do, being the ones who actually themselves have the ignorant certainty.

That goes back to the very first line, where you seem to suggest that the dispute comes from non-believers dogmatically claiming to understand everything. That's backwards - the unfounded claims to knowledge are almost always by the believers, not the nonbelievers.

Finally, in that last paragraph you assert that "religious fanatics" may be just as intelligent as we are. But you've already undermined that claim by appealing to Pascal's Wager. If you'd put any effort at all into understanding this, you would have found the obvious and well-known flaw in that argument. By making it part of your case, you sent up a flag that says "I don't know what I'm talking about here, and I have made no effort at all to inform myself, but I'm still going to lecture you about it". That really makes it difficult to sympathize with your argument to be "just as intelligent" and to have love.

Answer 3

"So, if you are willing to admit that you don't understand everything, and that there MAY be a possibility that there was a creator, something more to this life...

"Why would you choose to not believe? What if you are wrong? What if you are turning down your oppertunity to God and happiness every day, just so that you can hang on to your non-belief?"

What if religion is wrong and God hates everyone anyway. You said yourself anything is possible. What if God is mean, and puts all of us in hell for his own pleasure? You said yourself, "So, if you are willing to admit that you don't understand everything, and that there MAY be a possibility that there was a creator" What was the point of worshipping a God that is going to hate you anyway.

Or since God created me with a free mind, then he would give us choice in believing what what we choose (created in his image.) So no matter what he would forgive us, since how would we know (he's all loving after all.) There is no proof either way, and we are so powerless compared to an omnipotent being.

Why are there 1,000,000 different religions saying that they are the "only true way to God." How can any religion assert that it's the one true way to God if indirectly God created them all by creating us?

Or if God is omnipotent (all powerfull) and omniscient (all knowing) omnevolent, then why is there evil? He knows all, has the power to change everything, and has the will. Then why doesn't he? Some would argue that as a reason for God not existing. Some would argue that God would be missing one of those traits.

Is omnipotence by itself impossible? If it were could God create a stone to heavy for himself/herself/itself to lift?

Hope that clears up why I'm agnostic.

Answer 4

Pascal's Wager. This is an extremely flawed logic that claims that if a person believes they lose nothing, and if they don't believe and they are wrong, they lose everything. There are many problems with this argument. First, belief is not a choice. Asking me to believe in a god is like asking you to believe in unicorns, it can't be done. The idea of a god is no more logical to me than the idea of elves. Another problem with Pascal's Wager is that it is a false dilemma. The assumption is that your god exists, or no god exists. But what if the Pagan gods exist? If this is the case, you will go to their hell just like atheists. What if the Hindu gods exist? Again, you'll be sent to hell. Because an infinite number of gods could exist, the chance that you choose the correct god is infinitely small. Then, let's consider that a god may exist who rewards skepticism and punishes blind faith. If this is the case, all theists will go to hell, and all atheists will go to this god's heaven. The assumption that religious people lose nothing is also false. Think of the hours of your life you've spent in religious worship. If you are wrong, and your god doesn't exist, then you've wasted that much of your life.

I have considered how religious fanatics feel because my entire family is religious. There are plenty of intelligent theists, I'm not denying that. But your religion gives you ignorance. Here you claim that Christians have a different sort of inner peace, how do you know that? There are billions of people who don't believe Christianity, and they attain that same "inner peace" from other means.

Answer 5

Well this question has been asked so many times that it is starting to get old.
Maybe the reason people choose not to believe in a creator or supreme being is because of what _they_ feel inside, or more specifically, what they don't feel inside.
I know that when I look at this world, and all the evil that is wrought in the name of God, I don't see the influence of an all-powerful creator who loves all mankind. All I see is ignorance and irrational hate.
If I'm wrong, I guess I will suffer for all eternity. But if that is God's love, then I'm not sure I want to be embraced by him anyway.

Answer 6

This is Pascal's wager, and it is a piss-poor excuse to follow a religious belief. By my admission that I do not know anything of God, this does not by default make your beliefs correct. This question just shows again the absolute arrogance of many theistic religions. You claim to know things which no opne can possibly know. That either makes you a liar or a fool. But either way, I do not envy you.

Edit: Your claim to be more at peace just solidifies my argument. I have a wonderful life, full of happiness and beauty. I have worked extremely hard to achieve this.

Answer 7

True, there are lots of things I don't know. However there are also many things I do know, one of these things being that there is absolutely no proof of god's existence. I don't believe because there's no reason too, and in the unlikely event that god does exist then he should be able to understand that.

Anyways, what if you're wrong? What if god doesn't want you to be Christian? You could end up in hell AND you would have dedicated your life to nothing.

Answer 8

By throwing out Pascals Wager at me you are asking me to give lip service to a theology I don't believe in. You are asking me to compromise myself. Would you ever give lip service to a belief you did not truly believe in? Would you compromise your beliefs?

Not every christian has that inner peace, I think if they did they would not feel the need to make everyone conform to their beliefs. Also don't tell me because I'm an atheist I don't know what a christian feels because I was raised by them and I am married to one; the only difference being is that they respect my choice unlike others.

Answer 9

You are aware of the old saying "A wolf in sheeps clothing?" Maybe you are the wolf in sheeps clothing. Maybe everyone who's main purpose in life is to "convert" all us poor bastards who are "non-believers" are the wolves. What if YOU are the one who is wrong and every one you convert to your version of belief is doomed to an eternity of damnation? Back in the day, the people who didn't see it your way would have been shown the way at the end of a sword. People like you kill freedom of knowlege the same way your belief mongoring ancestors killed peoples freedom of religon.

He leadeth me unto greener pastures...where He decides my fate...Not you.

Answer 10

For me it's not as simple as believing or not believing. It's that I'm being asked to believe this ridiculously made up story.