do atheists ever consider?

Question

the fact that the 3 major religions share prophets and almost identical veiw of creation through adam and eve. Two say that God is one, one says he has a son. Two believe in in jesus as prophet, one believes he's God's son. Two don't believe that muhammad is last prophet, one does. But for the most part they are all similar. Doesn't this make you think that probably one is correct?

Answer 1

Academics viewing the universe through a narrow scope should rethink assumptions
Dallas Morning News
By Roy Abraham Varghese
December 15, 2004

Last week, The Associated Press broke the news that the most famous atheist in the academic world over the last half-century, Professor Antony Flew of England's University of Reading, now accepts the existence of God.
Mr. Flew's best-known plaint for atheism, "Theology and Falsification," was delivered in 1950 to the Socratic Club, chaired by none other than C.S. Lewis. This paper went on to become the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the last five decades and set the agenda for modern atheism.
Now, in a remarkable reversal, Mr. Flew holds that the universe was brought into being by an infinite intelligence.
"What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together," he said. "The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence."
Given the conventional wisdom of some psychologists that people rarely, if ever, change their worldview after the age of 30, this radical new position adopted by an 81-year-old thinker may seem startling.
But Mr. Flew's change was consistent with his career-long principle of following the evidence where it led him. And his newfound theism is the product neither of a Damascus road experience nor of fresh philosophical arguments, but by his sustained analysis of scientific data.
Mr. Flew's conclusion is consistent with the actual beliefs of most modern scientific pioneers, from Albert Einstein to quantum physicists like Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg. In their view, the intelligence of the universe - its laws - points to an intelligence that has no limitation - "a superior mind," as Einstein put it.
Not a few of our men and women of letters, it would seem, have been looking for God in all the wrong places. Those who dismiss God as a product of psychological conditioning or pre-scientific myth-making have not come to terms with the essential assumptions underlying the scientific enterprise.
Science assumes that the universe follows laws, which leads to the question of how the laws of nature came into being. How does the electron know what to do? In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking asks what breathes fire into the equations of science and gives a universe for them to describe. The answer to the question of why the universe exists, he concluded, would reveal to us "the mind of God."
Last May, I helped organize a New York University symposium on religion and science, with the participation of Mr. Flew and others. Our starting point was science's new knowledge that the universe's history is a story of quantum leaps of intelligence, the sudden yet systematic appearance of intrinsically intelligent systems arranged in an ascending order.
Many people assume that the intelligence in the universe somehow evolved out of nonintelligence, given chance and enough time, and in the case of living beings, through natural selection and random mutation. But even in the most hardheadedly materialistic scenario, intelligence and intelligent systems come fully formed from day one.
Matter came with all its ingenious, mathematically precise laws from the time it first appeared. Life came fully formed with the incredibly intelligent symbol processing of DNA, the astonishing phenomenon of protein-folding and the marvel of replication from its very first appearance. Language, the incarnation of conceptual thought with its inexplicable structure of syntax, symbols and semantics, appeared out of the blue, again with its essential infrastructure as is from day one.
The evidence we have shows unmistakably that there was no progressive, gradual evolution of nonintelligence into intelligence in any of the fundamental categories of energy, life or mind. Each one of the three had intrinsically intelligent structures from the time each first appeared. Each, it would seem, proceeds from an infinitely intelligent mind in a precise sequence.
We can, if we want, declare that there is no reason why there are reasonable laws, no explanation for the fact there are explanations, no logic underlying logical processes. But this is manifestly not the conclusion adopted by Einstein, Heisenberg and, most recently, Antony Flew.
Roy Abraham Varghese of Garland is the author of The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God (Tyr Publishing). He helped organize presentations by Antony Flew in Dallas on two occasions. Readers may contact Mr. Varghese through tyrpublishing.com.

Answer 2

Your arguments have no leg to stand on. The ancient Greeks believed that Apollo pulled the sun across the sky with his golden chariot. About 500 years ago, mankind still believed that the earth was the center of the universe but today we know that the earth revolves around the sun. Why didn't people think otherwise? Because they couldn't explain why the sun rose and fell everyday. They also believed that the earth was flat because they could only see so far and therefore the earth must be flat. People once believed that meat turned into maggots because they'd leave the meat and then one day there would be maggots all through it. They didn't know that a fly would come along and lay its eggs which would hatch into maggots. These are just a few examples of ideas that people had in order to explain things they didn't understand.

Answer 3

The fact that three major religions share an identical view of creation through adam and eve does not make them correct. In fact, none of them are correct. The coincidences between them occurs JUST because both Cristianity and Islamism DERIVE from Judaism, this is why they share similar views. According to your argument, since they have similarities, probably one of them is correct. That has no ground on logic. Isn't it possible that all three are incorrect?

The proposition that mankind came from Adam and Eve have no support in evidence. It is only a tale from an ancient scripture. Evolution has a lot of evidences. You can believe in the old testament even without evidence, but that does not make it correct. It is not the quantity of believers in a given proposition that makes it true, but the quantity and quality of evidence favouring that proposition. A simple example: in the past, virtually everybody believed that the world was flat, including the church. Even with everybody believing so, the true was different and science brought sufficient evidence of the true.

Answer 4

No, not at all. I think that during a period of time on earth, the mentality of the people was to believe in gods- they had no other way of explaining life.

Just as the Lutherans broke away from Catholicism because they didn't agree... or the whisper a sentence in a circle game... or old wives tales passed down from generations... ONE story has changed numerous times...

What i do think is rediculous is how you can say... "probably one is correct"... you recognize that they are similar, but still cannot see that one is not better then the other. Aside from the "characters" that outline each religion, the overall beleifs are also the same. Be a good person to yourself and to others.... I don't need a god to tell me how to do that.

In 2000 years, "religion" will be discussed in textbooks, telling students how the world destroyed itself because of these beliefs in "god". Each one thinking theirs is better then the first, while in reality, they were all the same. It will be looked upon as an absurb belief system. - Just as we see the greek gods now ...

Answer 5

Atheists believe what they see. They have no faith in anything but what they see with their eyes. I am a Christian but I also think for myself. I read what my ancestors have written in the Holy Bible, but unlike the Atheists I believe that the accounts are actually true. I don't think there was a period of mass psychosis or anything. Several people experienced the same miracles, etc. and wrote about it. No coincidence in my mind, but hey other people may think its a 1000 page fairy tale, they have the right to do that.

As for your question, yes I do believe atheists think about it, but just come to the same conclusion. So maybe?

Answer 6

I'm not an atheist, but all of those religions started in the same area so obviously they share similarities the fact that they are in war with one another make me not consider any of them, i find it more intreging that Shamans from different parts of the world have similiar beliefs and techniques yet they had no clue of each others existence.

Answer 7

So you're saying that truth by consensus is enough? Do you vote on what is truth? I'd say that points to common historical points that are elaborated on in different ways depending on the culture. It wouldn't indicate whether or not they were literal depictions of what really happened. History is a tricky subject.

Answer 8

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all from the exact same geographical location, they are slightly different stages of the same religion spreading and evolving, this is hardly a mystery and I point it out often, all are middle eastern religions and an example of religious sectarianism and division

All these religions seem out of context geographically anywhere other than the middle east and out of context historically belonging and having real relevance only to antique societies of that same region.

Answer 9

Do religious people ever consider that atheists don't care. That's why they're atheists.

Answer 10

Have you ever considered FSM ok so i am an atheist believe it or not but i feel like people shouldn't just dismiss fsm. sure, dismiss the gospel of FSM because for me it is just a cause for confusion. but have any of you ever thought of a power greater than yourself. There are just as many things proving something greater than oneself than disproving (remmember people i am talking about FSM not the gospel). So for the third time i ask have you ever considered a power greater than yourself? FSM loves you all

Answer 11

I don't understand why one of them should be correct. The three major religions were born in strife and their homeland is still hell on Earth.
There is only one single element that determines your religion: Not the truth, not objective evidence but simply your GPS location. Nothing else. For each GPS location, there is a correct religion.