Is the Comprehension Level of Atheists Very Narrow?

Question

LMAO - I find it funny how you all are in the Religion and Spirituality discussion to discuss something you have no belief in.....so...why are you here?
Im trying to hate, Its just a question...

Are you here to flame and degrade?
Or just express your views and opinions in a PEACEFUL manner?

Is it really that hard for you to understand that Creation Requires some kind of Creator, and so on?
Is that hard to understand that the possibilities are endless?
Is that hard to understand that many people see the Divine in the Natural World?

Think about it - - -
Can you really live with the fact that you are here by random chance? And life means absoutley nothing?
The emotions that you feel are all false?
And that you're beliefs are right because you see no evidence of the divine.....yet you love to take walks on the beach, look at the sunset, etc?

Just asking. =)

LMAO!! EDIT***

I'm NOT trying to hate....damn typos man!

I believe in evolution!

I think its part of the plan (if there is one.)

Did I ONCE say I believe in "God".

NO - I believe in the evolution of THOUGHT.....and that everything begins with some sort of THOUGHT, ask a scientist.......things do "think" at a molecular level.
I believe that there is SOME SORT OF CREATOR...did I once say God or Zeus?
No -

Take some criticism man....oh and by the way...
Im NOT Christian...

Answer 1

I understand your delusion completely. You've likely been conditioned to believe these things without proof from childhood, long before you had the intellectual tools to critically examine the assertions you were being conditioned to accept (tools you apparently either still don't have or don't use). You are making the "majority must be right" argument, and you simply aren't thinking through your own argument.

People universally thought epilepsy was caused by spirit possession in the the time of Christ and the cure the all wise god-believers had was beads and rattles (exorcism). Do you still believe every seizure is caused by a demon?

Galileo was brought before the Inquisition and condemned for writing that the Earth orbits the Sun when clearly the Earth was the center of God's creative activity according to Genesis. Do you still believe the Sun orbits the Earth?

You have made several extremely erroneous assumptions about what atheism is which simply looking it up in Wikipedia would cure.

For instance, most atheists I know know more about your faith than you do. I studied and taught Christianity for forty years, went to seminary and pastored a church and didn't come to my conclusions about the falsehood of the faith until halfway through a doctorate in Bib Lit., and several more years to reject theism as a whole. So I think I've put a lot of effort into understanding your viewpoint, much more in fact than you have.

Your faulty logic is really appalling. I don't blame you so much as I blame your teachers for incompetence and never teaching you logic or even how to think. For example, you asume a priori there is a creator when you say "creation." Like most, you begin with a prejudice you've been conditioned to hold and place all you see in that context. Simple logic tells you that you cannot assert existence must be created, but then insist on an exception to the rule for your god. If your god requires no creator then explain logically why the cosmos requires one other than your prejudice? You certainly have no testable evidence to base this conviction on. This is the most common red herring theists throw around, and you should really know better before you reach high school.

If as you say "the possibilities are endless" then why is existence impossible without a Canaanite mountain god that requires burned entrails to appease it for offenses to its ego? Why does existence require a deity that demands human sacrifice? Why would a deity capable of creating the entire cosmos be thin-skinned, vengeful, and in particular, want fat and entrails conveniently leaving the steaks for the priests?

How does rejecting your pre-scientific notions mean my emotions are false? Right now I am disgusted with you. Disgusted that someone who can obviously construct a sentence can't think his way out of a paper bag and is presuming to instruct me about things of which he is clearly abysmally ignorant, but arrogantly thinks he understands. I am quite certain those emotions are real. I feel them every time I read this kind of screed/polemic from a theist. But I also have to remind myself that I was once you, and there's hope that someday the truth will matter to you more than the comfort of thinking you already possess it.

As for meaning, my life is full of meaning that I have chosen for it. Here's my motto: "Don't just stand there, lend a hand." That philosphy has enriched my life far more than praying to dead men and imaginary deities.

As far as evidence of the divine, does believing in the divine make the beach and sunset more wondrous? Astronomer Carl Sagan was an atheist, and I assure you his appreciation of the magnificence of the cosmos dwarfed yours and mine together. He spent his life understanding and appreciating what you and I mostly take for granted.

Basically, the offensive part of your post is your presumption, that most of your ilk seem to make, that somehow rejecting your mythology makes us lesser beings, purposeless, amoral, unhappy, etc., as though your belief in imaginary beings, the kind of beliefs we lock people away for having if they conflict with the majority religion, somehow make you more complete. I know that they in fact have stunted your intellectual development and have caused you to settle for a lie instead of finding out the truth of reality for yourself. I'm not saying that to degrade you, but it is a criticism of your having the capacity to seek the truth and instead being willing to settle for the fairy tales you've been raised on.

I think we both know you reject Zeus, Hermes, Athena, Dionysus and other fairy tales, but you accept the religion you have been culturally conditioned to accept, even though it's claims are just as baseless and objectively silly. I also doubt you've ever asked yourself why. Maybe it's time you did. But then your screen name wouldn't be so perfectly ironic.

Answer 2

1. Many people ask questions about atheism here, so it makes sense for atheists to be here to, you know, answer their questions.

That's the way this site works.

2. I'm an atheist, and I often have many questions about religion. What does a particular verse of a holy book mean to the religious? What is the difference between two sects of the same religion? etc. If I want answers to those questions, I see no reason why I shouldn't ask them hear.

3. You said:

"Can you really live with the fact that you are here by random chance? And life means absoutley nothing?
The emotions that you feel are all false?
And that you're beliefs are right because you see no evidence of the divine.....yet you love to take walks on the beach, look at the sunset, etc?"

That's wrong in so many ways. Evolution is not random chance, and most atheists believe that life has meaning and that the emotions they feel are real. They can appreciate the beauty of the cosmos without inventing mythical beings to do so.

Read a book. Learn about this stuff before spouting ignorant, bigoted trash.

Answer 3

These arguments go on forever without resolution because the two sides approach the question from totally different directions. From your comments, "Can you really live with the fact that you are here by random chance?" etc. it's clear that you've conformed your version of reality to what gives your life meaning. Agnostics and atheists come from a more honest direction - they ask what's true regardless of what they might wish were true. Then they work to make that more honestly arrived at interpretation of reality meaningful. As an aside, your comment with the somewhat condescending tone, "Is it really that hard to understand that creation requires some kind of creator?" makes no logical sense. After all, who created the creator? If the answer is no one, then something in fact did come from nothing or always existed - and if you concede that then you must also concede that the creation (as you call it) could be the thing that always existed.

Answer 4

Your analogy was bad, and your logic was faulty. Cars need to be created by a creator, so therefore people need to be created by a creator?? You must be very young if you can't see how poor that logical reasoning is. You were drawing an analogy between two things that aren't in any way related.

Being here by random chance doesn't really upset me. I don't have to believe in a creator for life to mean something to me. That certainly doesn't make my emotions less real or dampen my enjoyment of life.

Now, run along and tell mummy and daddy that your 'oh so clever idea to prove creationism' failed.

Answer 5

Creation requires a creator, yes.

Now, where's your proof the universe is a created thing, and did not form entirely from naturalistic principles?

Yes, I can live with the fact that life arose by stochaistic processes, has no extrinsic meaning, that emotions are nothing more than a biochemical computation, and that free will is entirely illusionary and that everything is in fact perfectly computational and was predetermined from the moment of the inflationary era.

I can prove there is no theistic deity. I don't make the truth, I don't even have to like the truth. But the truth is what it is all the same.

Answer 6

Yes, I can live perfectly well with the fact that there is no especially 'deeper meaning' to life other than the meaning I create for myself. I have no idea what you mean by 'all emotions are false', they seem to be pretty real to me.

And yes, it is quite difficult to see how people make the jump from 'the universe is beautiful', to 'God must've made it'. The logic seems pretty much non-sequiter no?

Answer 7

Newbie. I'll give you a heads up. This question as well as the watchmaker analogy, anything with the words evolution and monkeys in the same sentence, the foxholes statement, warrants a drink. *gulp, gulp* And the one that started the drinking game, pascal's wager.

Answer 8

Atheism is the rejection of religion. That means it is ABOUT religion. So this is the place to talk about it. And this question gets asked like 50 times a day. Are you guys really that insecure that you can't take criticism?

Answer 9

Well we're in the Society and Culture part of Yahoo Answers and it says Religion and Spirituality. Hmm one doesn't have to be religious to be spiritual. Everybody has the right to be here as religion plays an integral part of how our society and culture is shaped and formed as well as it affects our government and politics and secular laws. Anyway everybody has something to say when it comes to the subject of religion. I personally find the subject of religion to be an interesting subject. If you don't like it then you can simply stop coming here.

Answer 10

New here huh?

Also you obviously know nothing about evolution from your analogies there.(Earlier Topic)

anyway using things like the beach for God I could easily use to prove the existence of Zeus.

"Creator" what else could you be implying?