R/S Atheists and Agnostics, What are your own personal beliefs about life and the universe?

Question

How do you makes sense of and perceive the universe? Buddhism is in a sense Atheistic and Taoism agnostic, any practitioners?

Answer 1

My personal belief is that science does not have all the answers, and religion does not have all the answers, and I'm prepared to keep an open mind. I refuse to believe that human beings are as good as it gets, the top of the tree, no "higher power". That would be just sad.

Answer 2

It took a long time to get here.
First a couple of supernovas.
then the sun had to distill from the resulting Stellar Nursery.
Gases had to congeal and form planets.
Volcanism had to keep Earth churning, primitive life, bacteria had to develop and give us an oxygen atmosphere, those bacteria had descendants that turn into more and more complex descendants and eventually left the ocean.
The first dominant species was dinosaurs, they had their run and the mammalian reptiles were better suited for life in a new world.
Some of them went up into the trees, got smarter by dealing with complex information of grabbing branches, then came down from the trees.
A small group of these got really good at hunting and gathering and over time developed enough agricultural surplus to do other things.
Over time, they got better and better at everything they tried until, here we are!
There's a grandeur in this view of who we are and where we come from.
We are that the stuff from a supernova that became aware of our own existence. Our life is that rare and precious!
Or, we were created in a mythical garden by a monstrous jealous bully who doesn't give any shred of his existence but we better obey nonetheless or we will be thrust by this 'loving" Creator into a fiery pit for all eternity.
Give me the one with the facts and science behind it please!

Answer 3

I'm not sure where to start since thats such a massive topic.

I don't believe in any god or gods. However, I'm an Atheistic Wiccan. Meaning, I don't believe the gods are real beings, but only concepts.

I live in this world with everything else. I don't hurt others because I don't want them to hurt me (or those I love). I deeply respect nature as being an equal force, and feel that we are a part of it, not above it.

I don't do any drugs, except for a terrible addiction to caffeine that pretty much everyone in existance has, and the occasional tylenol for a headache or medicine for a sickness (like antibiotics for strep throat).

I believe in the supernatural but only in that there are things science has yet to explain. That doesn't mean science won't, just that they haven't yet. What this means is that I believe in ghosts beacuse I've experienced them. I believe in spirits because there are things out there are never were alive so they can't be ghosts. I've seen them.

There is no heaven and hell.

When we die, we are buried and turned to dust, or we temporarily turn into a ghost. But you'll find no 5000 year old ghosts in the world, so there must be a limit to the amount of time a person can spend as a ghost before their energy just dissipates. But not everyone turns into ghosts, so it must take an incredibly amount of person strength, and willpower, to become one. Most people are too weak to manage it.

I believe in personal strength and that, if your life sucks, you have no one to blame but yourself. I believe in personal responsibility. Only you control your own life, no one else does, so if you make a mistake, admit it and learn from it. If you know better than doing to do something stupid, then don't do it and save yourself alot of trouble.

I'm married but not for the family or for any gods or anything. I'm married because its the ultimate expression of publicly declared love and detemination for a life committment to the love of my life.

I love my family. No matter what, they will always be my family, and I'll never abuse them, or their love. They can count on me when they need me.

I respect and love myself and I will not allow another person to walk on me for any reason. To do less would be deplorable.

The universe itself... well thats a question unanswered as yet. But saying "god did it" is no answer at all. Thats a cop out when you're too lazy to keep searching. But keep searching I will, even if I never find the answers. I can live with not knowing. Its the questions that drive me. Religion gives no answers, but science does.

Answer 4

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide. We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go 'round every two hundred million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Answer 5

my belief about life: I am but one link on the infinite chain of life; a thread in an infinite tapestry. I was born with certain potentialities, biological potentials...and they all unfold throughout the blip of eternity that I will be here. Depending on my makeup, I have a range of responses I can choose from.

the universe: at this point, most of it is beyond our knowing. at best, there are unproven theories about its origin, and our origin. Yes, evolution, is JUST a theory that no one can prove. for years I thought it was fact, but then I did some reading and Behe's Darwin's Black Box gave compelling evidence that new species coming from other species is highly unlikely

Answer 6

Life is what you make of it. It doesn't have to be inherently special or have a value only because we think we should have an afterlife afterwards. We should love life because it is the only one we will ever have.

This universe is big. Really big. And we are but a dot in the cosmic timeline. We can only give importance to our personal lives..

Answer 7

No 'belief'... I accept the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE for:
- Big Bang Cosmology (Universe);
- Gravity / Curved Space (Formation of Earth);
- the Theory of Evolution (Life's Wondrous Diversity).

Answer 8

Well that’s a really BIG question.

Like how life and the universe got here, you mean? I guess the short answer is that I don’t know.

But it’s just such a vague question.

Answer 9

Life happens, the universe is a very big place. My life is far to short to get to see it all.
Those are my personal beliefs.

Answer 10

Life is too early to understand. Let the future answer it.


ex. understanding the mysteries of DNA was a total mystery thousands of years ago, now we are progressing on it. But we have to be humble on what we know, for the fact that it requires time to understand it.