Serious question for atheists?

Question

Not to make fun, or be cheeky. This is a real question. When you read something or see something or even experience something, do you see each thing through an open mind, or do you have the view that God is fake no matter what?
Please don't throw this back on me. I readily admit I see the world through a slanted lens.
I'm just curious about the nature of atheism. In other words, I guess I'm asking, are you compelled to believe this, or is it a conscious choice? I won't make fun of you either way, I promise. I just want to know.

Answer 1

for me, i chose to become atheist.

and.. for religious things, im most often open minded
but in other cases, where people HAVE to prove their point..
well.. yea.


edit:
good to see that some people actually ask good questions =P

Answer 2

Atheists consider god belief to be a childish emotional crutch, resorted to when you find out that your parents aren't all-powerful after all, so something else must be.

This isn't meant to be insulting, believe it or not, only realistic. I save my insults for the fundamentalist fools who think they know everything simply because they read the Bible or Q'uran, and truckloads of opportunistic preachers and imams are only too ready to take advantage of this mentally impaired state to encourage obedience and tithing.

Otherwise atheists are just as human as anyone else. We have families, friends and pets that we love, jobs that we do, taxes that we willingly pay, and morals that we follow because you don't neeed a god to tell right from wrong. We are, however, sickened by all the time and energy wasted on religion (some of it used to trash atheists) that could be better spent actually helping each other instead of inciting wars around the world.

We also experience at least as much, and quite possibly more, wonder at the universe and all it contains as any believer. The difference is that we don't worship unconscious nature, but study it both to satify our curiosity and to improve our own lives, including those of believers. It also turns out that the more one studies real nature, the less need one has for super-nature, as it is shown to be unnecessary and certainly undetectable. It's no accident that 90% of the scientists who have brought you the modern world are non-religious; I only wonder why it isn't 100%.

Answer 3

You can't fake believe. If you don't have it, you don't have it. I don't have any faith that there are any gods. So it's not a choice, really. Now if somehow it were proven that there WAS a god or gods, I would reconsider. As it is, there is simply no evidence.

I have an open mind in as much as I think people should believe what they want without being harassed about it. I have the utmost respect for many religions: Buddhists, Pagans, Hindu, Hebrew,and others.

My mind becomes considerably less open when I come up against rude Fundie Xians who are spreading hate, fear, and intolerance in the name of their religion. Or when people are trying to convert others to believe what they do. The same goes when I encounter people who are so closed-minded they refuse to see things from any other persepective.

Answer 4

I've been through several different religions looking for the right one for me. Each one of them had their merits, but when it came right down to it, their views on God just didn't make sense to me. I think of myself as a logical thinker. I need to see proof of something. If I ask my daughter if she turned off the stove, she can tell me 50 times "yes mom", it's not that I don't trust her, but I'm not going to believe it's true until I see it for myself. Maybe that's some repressed OCD coming out, I don't know. But after years of searching for the right religion I finally asked myself why a religion. Why can't I just believe that God doesn't exist. I already kind of believed it, but felt guilty about it because of my christian upbringing. I still have a spritual side, I still believe we have a soul and that I will be reincarnated when I'm finished with this lifetime. But I don't believe there's a higher purpose. I don't think that we work up a spiritual ladder. Our soul is our energy, energy is constant, so it must go on to something else. Another human, an animal, who knows. I don't think you retain any knowlege from previous lives. Your body acted as storage. Kind of like a hard drive in a computer.
Anyway, I don't speak for anyone but myself. I guess most Atheist might say I'm more agnostic. But I do call myself an Atheist. It's not a calling. It's just a conclusion I came to after a very long search for who I am.
Hope this shed a little light on the subject for you.

Answer 5

Well, you can see by my name, I'm a skeptic (from the Greek for "thoughtful"). We are just the kind of people that try not to jump to conclusions without having a reason to. We seek many possibilities for all questions and phenomena.

You probably understand an atheist much more than you realize... If you saw a large storm at sea, you probably would not pray to Poseidon to calm the storm; you realize that the storm is caused by natural causes. Yet, people not so long ago used to pray to Poseidon.

Well, the way you now see that, we see your needing to explain so many things with your God.

Remember, it's good to have a mind open enough so that new information can get in, just not one so open that your brains fall out.

Answer 6

Atheism isn't a belief. It's a lack of one.

When I read something or experience something, of COURSE I keep an open mind. It's part of being a freethinker. But it doesn't come without any sort of skepticism. Questioning brings knowledge.

Oh. You're talking about God.
God IS fake... after many years of questioning and research, I think I've made a safe assumption to say that he doesn't exist.

The nature of atheism is simply this... that the murder of one little girl casts doubt upon the existence of a benevolent God.
When you understand why you dismiss all the other gods, you'll understand why I dismiss yours.

Answer 7

No atheist KNOWS how the universe used to be created. The concept of the large bang presently suits what we do understand nevertheless approximately the increasing universe. Now the idea of the large bang used to be in the beginning introduced up via a catholic priest so it's relatively now not in clash with faith consistent with SE. The drawback along with your assertion that the whole lot calls for anything to create it's that you don't relatively KNOW that both you simply think it with the proof you believe you might have in entrance of you. The thought that god existed with no author will have to provide you a few thought how we will be able to think that topic exists previous to lifestyles as we all know and could have actually endlessly. The large bang might have occurred billions of occasions reduced in size and occurred once more in accordance to a couple theories. The invisible hand of god is used as a default right here, via announcing seeing that we do no entirely appreciate the production of the universe than it have got to be attributed to an invisible being. Well the early cultures didn't appreciate the solar they usually attributed it to a fiery chariot pushed via a god. identical premise in my brain with no trouble when you consider that I can not conceive of anything at this degree does now not make it not possible, however I don't need to lodge to the default role of attributing it to a god.

Answer 8

Isn't it sad how carefully you felt you had to word your question? That always shows to me how dark this R+S section has become. You ask a very valid question, but are scared that many people will take offense (Which usually happens).

To answer your question: I'm an atheist. In everything I do, the word God never even crosses my mind. To me it's not a valid concept, just like I never think about Thor in my daily life.

However, my beloved girlfriend is a Christian. Not a really deep believer, but she believes in God. We live together in her country, Romania, I'm Dutch. Romania is a very orthodox Christian country. So, God plays a huge role in my daily life. Not because God himself, but because in all I do I try to understand why people believe. And honestly, I DO try to understand that. And somehow I can understand why.

I do not believe I have the truth. As an atheist I probably believe there is 'something more'. Sometimes I call myself a 'somethingist'. I do believe there is a constant energy force of Love that binds us all. My girlfriend calls that energy God, I don't name it, because I don't see it as a Higher Power. I don't see is as a Creator. I don't see it as the Ruler of the Universe.

I honestly have no idea if that makes me open-minded or closed-minded. It's just what I believe. I try to respect the Christians I interact with on a day to day basis, even if sometimes that's truly difficult. Because huge parts of their faith is something
I truly can't understand. Just as you probably never will be able to fully understand my belief system.

But hey, isn't that what the world makes such a great place? Wouldn't it be extremely boring if we all understood eachother completely? :)

And why I am an atheist? Seriously, I have no idea. I was born and raised as an atheist, in an atheist country, Holland. I just don't believe in God. Or in a god. The concept holds no truth for me, and yes, to me it's just that, a concept.

I'm fully in agreement with Alex_Azender when it comes to fundamentalists. My mind closes very very fast when I see people spread hatred based on the Bible. Not only because they spread hatred, also because they don't listen to Jesus. And as an atheist, I actually value Jesus' message of Love.

Answer 9

Here's the thing. I have an open mind, but it's all a matter of probabilities. If God came to me in the form of a burning bush, I would call my doctor and tell him I'm crazy. If God came to me in the form of a dream, I would suspect that I was just dreaming.

I can't imagine what the evidence would possibly be like to support God as a hypothesis. It seems like there's always a simpler explanation -- you had a religious experience -- are you sure you weren't drugged?

I'm not being demeaning either, it just seems like any piece of evidence you could provide would point first to other things. But I'd like to see the evidence, still.

Answer 10

The exact reason im atheist is because im open minded, im not influenced by what others say or preach to me, when i look at the world around me like i did tonight(i went stargazing) i saw what an amazing place the heavens are, why was it created? I then look at scientific facts and most religions dont co operate with each other in a logical sense, hence for me, it cannot make sense to me what other religions preach, i believe in individuality, everyone is equal, a good laugh, and good times.

Answer 11

Most say the proof of god's existance is in a book that humans wrote. Of course I would disagree completly, since the humans who wrote the bible had a limited knowledge of the natural world. Even in nature, I don't see god's work. Natural Selection and Evolution doesn't need a designer for the complexity of life. I also see the universe as always having been around, meaning it was never created. So it had no beginning and so a creator would have nothing to do.