*I have been gravitating towards atheism for a while now.*?

Question

I want people who are athiest to tell me why they are athiest, give YOUR personal reasons for being 100% sure religion is bogus. On the other hand I want religious people to give me their personal reasons for believing.


For me, it just makes no sense to believe in any religion. I feel it answers no questions, just masks them with fairytale answers i.e. you suffer on earth and will one day walk through "pearly gates" live in a "mansion" in heaven next to God. I hear things like this and it re-enforces my understanding that religion is man-made because heaven and its beauty is clearly designed from a human perspective.


Religion, specifically christianity which I am personally familiar with, offers no reason for our existence other than that God was lonely and needed company...Come on!


I welcome answers from all angles..Religious and non religious, any religion.
Sensible answers only please.

utuk - Fair enough I havent studied christian theolgy, just like the other billions of people who include believers. We dont all have ready access to a professor in theology, a large % of believers believe what they believe based on Father/Pastor John Doe who they listen to on Sunday morning.

Answer 1

Atheist answerer:

There are hundreds upon hundreds of religions peppered throughout history, and each of them has claimed to be the 'true' way. Not one of them has been able to offer material proof of their claims - although they all try, by substituting material evidence for half-thought aphorisms and uneducated guesses.

Science, on the other hand, is based entirely on gathering, observing and testing evidence for various hypotheses, and allowing hypotheses to become theories if they stand up to the test. I've seen many religious folks bash science, using their computers, over the world's most advanced communications network, while eating microwave dinners. It seems that science is only wrong in the eyes of the believer when it contradicts a belief.

I think all of this, and I also think that there is not 'room for all points of view,' as we've seen argued in the states recently over the teaching of intelligent design to science students. One opinion is not equal to another. An opinion based on fact and the hard work of the world's most intelligent (and, by the way, predominantly atheist) community is worth far, far more than loosely-held 'beliefs' based on text printed in a wildly inaccurate, many-times translated, and not to mention unoriginal (since it borrows legends and stories from religions preceding it) book.

I believe that religion is a delusion, but I understand why it catches on. The religious believe that the world is created for them, the universe loves them and that there is no death - and I'm sure that's nice, if you can convince yourself of it. Unfortunately though, the world was not created for you, the universe does not love you, you will one day simply wink out of existence and life, I'm sorry to say, is cruel.

As an atheist, I'm often bashed for 'having no morals' by which to live my life, which is bunk. I have my morals and I do my best to do more good than harm. I respond to this point by making clear that I do what I do for my own sake and for the sake of my loved ones, rather than out of fear of a supposedly loving deity who will put my soul through the masher if I don't comply with his every demand.

In short, theist/deist religion is bunk because it is merely a digest of the current state of wishful thinking in the human race.

Answer 2

I feel I fall between two stools. On the one hand I am atheistic. I do not believe in a personal God of any description. After a good deal of study I found there to be little difference between any religions.

Christianity bears resemblances to Mithraism and other 'solar' religions. Creation myths from the Pacific to Atlantic share commonalities. I dare say followers of Zeus, Thor or Ra all felt they were following the one true religion. So why should any one religion have a monopoly on the 'truth'?

I also found there was nothing that persuaded me that a God exists. Certainly not in a 'biblical' sense, where scientific evidence appears to contradict most of the genesis story.

I did however find Buddhism suited me. It is practical and requires no belief in anything. The Buddha simply suggested that one tries out the technique he developed for coping with life and see if it works. I found it made me happier and more contented.

From Zen Buddhism I discovered Taoism. And here is where the difficulties arise, since bits of Taoism are spiritual. There is thought to be an underlying 'order' to the universe. A flow of energy throughout. A sense of 'universality' which one could think of as a bit 'goddy'. But that's as far as it goes.

So am I an atheist? Sort of. Agnostic? Not really. But I'm happy as I am.

Does this help? I hope so.
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Answer 3

I can't be 100% sure that there is no God. Just like Bertrand Russell said that you cannot be 100% sure that there is not an all-powerful china tea cup which orbits the sun and controls our destiny. You cannot be 100% certain about this or anything for that matter. But you can, however, be quite sure that the notion of the all-powerful china tea cup is completely absurd and without a shred of evidence. The same, I'm afraid, goes with God. Lots of things cannot be proven to be false simply because they are not falsifiable by their very nature. Science always treats the unfalsifiable as dubious.

Look also at the long list of Gods from history. Nobody in their right mind believes in Thor these days. But people used to, and they would have taken you for insane if you didn't. But nowadays Thor is universally considered to be something like a fairy tale, just like Zeus and Poseidon and all the rest from mythology. When it comes to these Gods, everybody in the world is an atheist. Just some of these Zeus and Thor atheists still cling to that one last God: Jehova or Allah, or whatever, and never stop to ask themselves why they don't believe in Thor but do believe in Jehova.

Or, a couple of steps back, why believe in Jehova and not Allah? What serious rationale is there for that? And don't say that they are the same. They are clearly mutually exclusive within their rigid belief systems.

Atheism is the only belief system which fits the evidence. I wish there were wizards and dragons and invisible flying men that exist to right all the wrongs in the world, but just look around and take note of all the countless unrighted wrongs.

Answer 4

I think you are going about it almost the right way in that you should not believe in something just because people say so but rather have proof of it, be it the proof of god or the proof or authenicity of certain scriptors.

It appears that you have some knowledge of christiany maybe because you were brought up as one. I think a good idea is to rationally use your head to see wether god exists or not, like for example the common questions to ask are where did everything come from, how did we get here etc.

People then ask if there is a god then why is there so much problems in the world, to answer any such question we need to know the purpose of our existance which we can only know if god tells us. This is where we lookl into religions, but there are so many out there, which one is the truth?

To answer this you just step back and look at the fundamental concept of each religion and see if there is any contradictions e.g. in christianity they believe in one god and yet theres allways been this confusion about gods son the christ and the holy ghost, in islam they believe in one god allah which there doesnt seem to be any argument. Inislam they also believe they can proof the existance of god and base the whole religion on evidences and facts and reject any innovation.

I urge you to either seek information your self or by the help of others to find out the truth about islam for the purpose of finding out wether if it is true or false and not just to create arguments. If after this effort you find that they sayings are wrong then what else is there then to believe in no god.

Its in your hands dude

Good luck

Answer 5

I was brought up Church of England. When I got to be about 25 I decided that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that God exists. So became Atheist.

In my forties I realised that there is a power (out there) of such a magnitude that we cannot imagine its force. It causes tsunamis, earthquakes and the like and is totally natural. The same natural force will then provide the love and general helpfulness required to rebuild the lives of those affected. Call it love, mother nature or whatever, you can't deny its existence and its natural - nothing to do with mankind - except that we are part of the jigsaw.

Wars are part of the natural phenomena too - people kill other people for gain - but other species compete too - for food, shelter, territory etc.

Am I Atheist still - in my opinion yes, but others call this believing in God.

Answer 6

You only have to look into space to realise that the earth is very small in the total universe. A grain of sand on a huge beach so this makes religious arguments about the truth seem very small also. On the other hand you are closing your mind if you just say there is no God, how do we know that? athiests are always looking for material proof but that means you only accept the material world right in front of your eyes which is no better than only accepting the Bible. Try to look for some alternative thinking and question everything.

Answer 7

I came to belief in Christ during a school's mission, it was like I was suddenly given sight.

After that the great black barrier,which had bothered me when I had tried to approach God as a child when sad with a problem, went.

Then some time after, after seeking the Holy Spirit in a powerful way, since that is promised to those who are fit for God's presence through having their sins forgiven by believing Christ, I had a staggering experience of His power, a complete act of grace on God's part. That is what is called "Joy unspeakable and full of glory", because your body is filled with a sense of God's presence, and a joy a 1000 times greater than any joy I had known before. It is one way in which God's Holy Spirit, the Third member of the Trinity, manifests an aspect of God's goodness in an experiential way. However, its only available fully (and possibly at all) to those who have believed, as God can't get inside people's spirits if they haven't been "born again" to make the experience full.
Of course, although experiences like that can make one 100% sure, one has to live by faith, since most of the time one is trusting in an invisible God. I have backslidden a lot at times, since I've had some very tough problems in my life, but I have absolute certainty that God exists. Trusting God is more the big problem for me, as this is not always an easy world. Circumstances coming ones way can be very discouraging if one is not careful.

Answer 8

But Christians are over-represented in prisons. And atheists are under-represented. Something like 70% of America is Christian, but statistics say over 90% of inmates are Christian. Yet only 15% of the population is Atheist, but less than 2% are in prison. If you were right... then less than 70% of Christians would be in prison; and more than 15% of prisoners would be atheists. What's more likely is that Christians (particularly fundamentalists) have an immature level of moral reasoning-- they're hung up on arbitrary rules. Kohlberg's theory of moral development posits that morality based on desire for reward/fear of punishment is the lowest stage of morality. Atheists don't follow these arbitrary 2000 yr old bronze age 'rules', and that distresses the Christians, who have immature sense of morality. But atheists, being such a small fraction of prison population, probably have a higher, more universal sense of morality-- like doing' what's right because it's fair and is better for the community, and the world.

Answer 9

I am an atheist Because, if a good 'god' existed, then there would not be so much hatred, fear, greed, racism, wars, starving, murder, abuse, poverty, or intolerance on this earth! I believe in a moral code! A code based on the various belief systems within religions on how to co-exist, without the stories 'gods' and 'messiahs' which I believe were introduced to control and abuse! I did a lot of research and reached conclusions that are my own!! But if people wish to believe, then let them, It is not up to me yo say what is right or wrong, people need to decide for themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_code#Moral_Codes
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/xdimgod.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Answer 10

I can understand the reasoning to think following any religion makes no sense especially when you see the hypocrasy and death it causes under the banner. But on the same hand I find it personally daft to write off all that we do not know about our universe and say that there can be nothing.
What we do not know will always outweigh that we do. Sadly I believe religion tries to call our bluff on this and try to pander to that part of us that is human nature to ask Why? How? Who? and give answers that in all truth are no more than a pretty story with a sanitised method of structure for society of that time. A grand idea, but to me no more than that.
This is the reason I class myself as agnostic. As to say there may be a higher being, but as yet I see no proof bar that we stand. And no ... this in itself is no proof, just a reason to ask How? and Why?