I'm bordering on atheism...what's your argument for or against?

Answer 1

The "God of the Gaps" shrinks with every new scientific discovery, and she's pretty much gone now. We have at least plausible explanations for everything that used to be attributed to the divine.

God stories are outdated and, in many ways, dangerous.

Arguments in favor of God's existence tend to be childish and either unsound, invalid, or both. The only reason people believe them is that they don't apply critical thinking to the area of religion like they do everywhere else.



That's a big key. You can suspect that all this God business has something wrong with it when you look into how scholars study the subject. Compare and contrast with even a subject as open to interpretation as history. Historians argue amonst themselves and do everything they can to discredit bad ideas. They hone their theories down until they are as certain as they can be that they are correct. They do not hold their beliefs to be sacred, and they are always willing to let new evidence alter their stances.

Theologians, on the other hand, insist on not questioning. They consider their belief system to be inviolate, the Word of God handed down to them. They do not seek truth. They do not search for knowledge. They only look to protect the beliefs that already exist, sometimes attempting to explain them when a critic from outside exposes a particularly bad idea.

That's why you're never supposed to question God or make fun of her. Religious beliefs are held sacred and never questioned as critically as even ideas in the study of History, which is about as close to subjective as you can get in the academic world.

If you can't even hold religious beliefs to that standard, you have to wonder just why you're not allowed to. Is it that they don't hold up to scrutiny?

Answer 2

Based on past questions I think you might enjoy these intellectual short blurbs - if they tweek the imagination let me know.........

1) What we all dread most," said the priest in a low voice, "is a maze with no centre. That is why atheism is only a nightmare."

2) "The Church had learnt, not at the end but at the beginning of her centuries, that the funeral of God is always a premature burial."

3) Materialism says the universe is mindless; and faith says it is ruled by the highest mind. Neither will be satisfied with the new progressive creed, which declares hopefully that the universe is half-witted."

4) Only at very slight moments, passing moments, has there been anything resembling a really independent scepticism. The sceptics themselves have always turned something else into a sacred object, into a superstition, and when that thing was examined it was always found to be far narrower than the older traditions that had been rejected."

5) "When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do."

6) It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are."

7) "You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter fact you were all balanced on the very edge of belief - of belief in almost anything."

8) It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything."

9) "If there were no God, there would be no atheists."

All these quotes are by the same man, G.K. Chesterton. In intellectual believer and pragmatist. I hope you enjoy the journey. The Website I collect these from is listed below.

Answer 3

Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."I John 5:10-12
God's word says this:"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."John 3:36

Why do you care? If you don't believe in God then it doesn't matter what we say.

You either have a fundamental misunderstanding of religion (that religious beliefs are based off of faith) or you are just another atheist that, rather than not having a religion, prefers to turn atheism into an active movement to preach against having a God.
you cant .

Answer 4

Let me say first being an atheist only requires you to not believe in God. The atheism we generally refer to here though is a whole movement and belief system of its own called the New Atheism. This is what I describe here. Atheism is for those willing to examine everything with a critical, logical eye. Atheists do not accept anything they themselves cannot test and verify. An Atheist is always willing to be proven wrong with solid, verifiable, and tested evidence. In fact, our skepticism begs to be proven wrong. If you are ready to only believe that which can be tested and proven, welcome to the New Atheists.

Answer 5

(Actually I was going to put this as part of another answer, but it got too long so I cut it, and it almost answers your question.)

Einstein said "To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious"

Richard Dawkins, author of "the God Delusion" and outspoken atheist says: "I wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense. The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason."

Perhaps... But on the other hand, Renee Descartes "Meditations on First Philosophy" looked at it and imagined the best possible being. "Proving" god
exists because a nonexisting being would not be as good as an existing being...

Well, I don't know about that logic, but I'll steal a little from it.


If there is only one god (according to Jesus), it hardly seems fair to leave the definition of that god to John the Beloved and Paul of Tarsus. If I can imagine a better god than the one that is portrayed in the Bible, it would be foolish for me to give my god, (an inclusive and expansive god) a lesser title while the title-holder is this interventionist, sin-punishing, war-mongering god, who has decided that his own creation (humanity) is not worthy of him unless we accept that Jesus Christ came back from the dead, walked around with holes in him and told his disciples to trust implicitly anybody who said his name and drank snake poison. (I mean, come on!)

In any case, it would be intellectually dishonest to let such a freak maintain the title of God. This lie is so huge it is like the Hitler's idea that the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. Getting close to being the Father of Lies, don't you think?

So, by re-defining god in a more palatable form, I am following a Christian doctrine (Worshiping no god before the one and true God) at the same time that I am maintaining my intellectual integrity. I'm not taking the idea of God from some old book, (selected passages deemed worthy by King James), but making my own observations of reality and asking God directly, who and what he/she/it is, keeping an open mind, and accepting no shortcuts or substitutes.

Answer 6

I'm not going to argue either way. Either you believe there is a god, or you don't. After much research, and soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that a god is nothing more than a deterrent to behaving in a way society frowns on. I don't need some hammer over my head to realize the difference between right and wrong, and to behave accordingly.

Answer 7

Its simple - choose atheism only if you agree with it. There is nothing wrong with staying agnostic either. It just means you are keeping your options open.

All I suggest is you keep researching and make your decision based on your interpretation of facts instead of basing it on someone else's opinion.

Answer 8

If you like to think for yourself, then atheism is the only way. If you prefer others to do your thinking for you, then I recommend religion.

Answer 9

While I can't speak for everyone, and I can only speak from personal experience, i think there is too much unexplained to truly denounce the possibility of anything supernatural. (I also think that every man is a god in their own right and every god is a man. The created mimics the creator which is why our gods have such human characteristics). If you want something that you can hold onto for your beliefs, believe in the power and possibilities of the human mind. We can convince ourselves that anything is possible. And if you accept that truth, anything truly IS possible, such is the nature of our minds.

Answer 10

Just think about it. A christian won't tell you to think because it's against their religion. If you enjoy thinking, you should probably just take the last step and free yourself.