Atheist and Agnostics?

Question

im just wondering how you live! how do you even function without something to believe in? In your opinion nothing has meaning, everything is chance, there is nothing that gives particulars meaning. In your opinion what is the point of humans without a divine God? doesn't this trouble you?
What fills you up? what makes you mean anything to anyone if you are just the product of chance living in a vast confused universe??? i just don't know how you could continually live life having no purpose, and virtually no answers.

if the universe is random then how come everything in creation is so orderly? if you are chance then whats the point?
If God is dead "or non existent" than all else is lost?
Have you ever thought about these things?
im just wondering.

what do you cling to?
i hate to be so harsh but what keeps you from committing suicide? whats the difference between right and wrong in your opinion? do you just turn to areas of non reason (drugs etc) to fill you up?

Answer 1

studying human behavior is my major. and i believe that there is no pure atheist. usually, this is the result of the rewards that an "atheist" get from the people. they are rewarded for the feeling that people think of them as rationalist and intellectuals. and because of this, some individuals who are not really "atheist" in nature, conform to this state. they question faith. and yet, why do they question it? if ever they are true, will it make a difference?, will it make the people of this world love one another?, stop all the wars?, cease the sufferings and hatred? they claim themselves as intellectuals and rational people, and yet, they are not rational about what it would cause. people have different faith, and this faith guides them into living a noble and peaceful life.
let's leave faith as it is.
there are no atheist, and they know it. they are protecting their ego by being more rational. there will always be a niche of faith in their being. ^_^

Answer 2

You are exactly right and for a long time I argued that there was still meaning in community, family, etc...

But eventually I realized that what u say is absolutely true. There is no reason for anything it is all chance. That doesn't mean that I will choose to believe in a falsehood to make myself feel better. The universe is what it is. That's it. Someday all humans will be dead and all life in the universe will be dead as the universe dies a cold dark death. So what will any human existence have meant at that point absolutely nothing.

So man through the millenia has created about 2,500 gods or so (www.godchecker.com) to make himself feel better and give HIMSELF a place in the universe. I can't choose among them as they all leave something to be desired, ESPECIALLY the xian god. So I deal with reality.

As for everyhting being so orderly, this falsity is easily corrected. The earth has had 5 major die-off events in the last 250 million years or so. At least one where 95% of all life was extinguished. If not for the last one about 65 million years ago, mammals would very likely still be rodent-sized creatures. So if not for that asteroid or volcanoes, or whatever it was, humans wouldn't exist. That doesn't sound so orderly to me (assuming of course that the universe is here just for our enjoyment as xians seem to do).

The earth is slowly falling into the sun, the moon is slowly moving away from the earth. Too much sun can KILL a human being, parasites blind thousands of children a year that play in rivers. Babies can be born anecephalic (with no brain). 1 in 8 pregnancies doesn't even come to full term. Up until 200 years ago the human lifespan was about 40. Orderly? That is an illusion.

Right and wrong are an illusion. I do not turn to drugs, I don't like that feeling of losign control. i play vid games and relax.

Answer 3

I look at it like this, people who often believe in god just stop questioning fact or stop asking "what/why does this happen?". Your answers are just that God did it. I became Atheist after going to several churches and all seemed that I was talking about a taboo subject when I question reality. I am a seeker of knowledge and truth. I don't need someone claiming that I am a blasphemer everytime I say something that cointains some fact. If you look through history, men of science have been persicuted by religion because they don't conform to the simple logic that "God did it". If it was like that, we wouldn't have found out that there was a Mars or any other planets. And in actuality, we live life more and are exposed to more that those who have a Deity to follow, look it up, it a fact, and proven too. There is a lot more you have to learn before you go judging those who don't believe, because you are only doing the work of those oppressors of way back then.

Answer 4

I'm sorry--where do you get your information that "nothing has meaning," "everything is chance," "there is nothing that gives particulars meaning"???
What makes you think I have no purpose? What makes you think I believe I live in "chaos" rather than "cosmos"? What give you the right to say I have "virtually no answers?"
I know these are the things that people with faith often believe about atheists. But you are being presumptuous because you have obviously not read anything by atheists except what confirms your predisposed beliefs.
Don't fear for my soul. Don't fear I'm going to become a mad murderer and kill your mother. My reason is obviously more sound than yours. Boethius told you to "join faith to reason." You have not.
I, on the other hand, have DISjoined reason from faith and rely only reason.

Answer 5

REALLY good question. I think about this stuff all the time.

I am a Unitarian Universalist. Within this religion there is a whole spectrum of beliefs, but I do consider myself agnostic. I do believe there is something out there, but it is undefinable and should not be labeled as a specific divine being, such as God, Allah, etc. I like to think of God as not an actual divinity but rather the concept of why everything IS...why anything exists, and the miracle of life itself.

What fills me up? Well, doing good in the world, for one thing. There is no more satifying feeling in the world that knowing you've made a difference in someone's life. (Keep in mind that being religious is not the same as having morals.) Knowledge fills me up. So does learning about other people, their ideas and their cultures...but most of all, searching for truth and meaning, for my own niche in our universe.

In my opinion, all particulars have meaning. We all serve a purpose here on Earth, whether we know it or not. We are all part of an intricate, interconnected web of life of which all life is a part. We all have a purpose, whether we're aware of it or not. Throughout our lives, we keep growing and learning. As we become our own person, we are constantly evolving, searching for what we think is right. I think that's our purpose.

What's the point of humans? Who knows? I think we're just a highly-evolved species that is smart enough to build up our own societies and get us to the point we're at today. We think of ourselves as totally separate from animals, and I'm not saying that's not somewhat true...but if you have pets, especially a dog or cat, you know what it's like to share a bond with them or to know that they have emotion. Also, you have to look at the fact that while the human race has done a lot of good in this world, we've also done a lot of bad. Essentially, we're destroying the planet. Why would any God want to create something like that?

You say that without a God we live in a vast, confused universe...true, it is vast and indefinitely confusing, and sometimes we don't know what to believe about everything around us. That's where religion originated from...people trying to explain the unexplainable. However, as our world changes and we learn more and more about our world, I don't believe that religion should stay static. Some religions are designed to explain things that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. As I grew up looking at the Bible from a neutral standpoint, when I later did Bible studies, I was able to look at it from an unbiased point of view and reach my own conclusions about what my thoughts were. Personally (and I don't mean to offend anyone reading this), I think a lot of the stuff in the Bible makes absolutely NO sense...things like racism and homophobia. True, the Bible holds many good morals, but I feel like this holy book was written to explain why things were the way they were...well, when the Bible was written. Not now. It still holds much truth and can be interpreted in innumerable ways, but I don't think that it's really right to take so much out of a book written by people who didn't necessarily know how to explain many things in their world.

I've wrestled for years (since I was a little kid) with my personal beliefs, especially about God. I just wonder, if God is so good, how could he let innocent people die, who could have made such an impact on the world if they had been alive longer? What about other religions from all over the world? Are they all wrong? Do we have any right to declare a religion wrong if we ourselves do not have proof that anyone else's is right? Some people claim they have a personal relationship with God. Is this truly genuine, or is it something else? Is it an imagined connection, brought about by fierce faith and hearing it since childhood, or is it real? If it is real, then how come only some people find this connection? If someone doesn't believe in God, does that mean they're going to hell? What if there isn't a hell? Where does heaven or hell exist, anyway? Is it a spiritual realm? A parallel universe? (Again with these next questions, not trying to be offensive.) How can we believe that something a minister or priest tells us is true JUST because they say so? What if we're all living lies and nothing that anyone believes is correct?

Sorry. I got a little long-winded there. But I think it's good that people question their own/others' beliefs (as long as they're respectful). It's really hard to describe these things sometimes, because there are often no easy answers. I applaud you for thinking about these things...you'd be surprised at how many people don't.

Answer 6

To atheists, there is no god, and the idea of one is ridiculous. He is just as real as the tooth fairy or gnomes. To agnostics, they may or may not believe there is a god, but believe there is no way to prove its existence.
Do you think a universe is proof? Is orderliness proof? Any of those things can be defined by science. Maybe the world was created by the Big Bang. People evolved from apes which evolved from small mammals from fish from amoebas. (i don't know the particulars, so this is just the gist.)

People don't have to believe in a higher being to be happy or find meaning in the world. What does believing in one do for you? Perhaps you pray or go to a religious building, or "feel" a god's presence. But really does it make a difference? You don't see or talk one-on-one with responses. Agnostics/Atheists may believe in creating their own meaning, achieving their life time goals...etc. You mean something to people because you are nice to them, or intriguing, or fun. Since when do you mean something to anyone because of god? do you love people better who are the same religion as you? do you love people because you think God said to form relationships with people?


I hope your answers help you understand the other side of the argument better. I don't care if a debate causes a person to switch sides. I just want them to open their minds...

Edit: Perhaps you are thinking of the idea of "sins" that only religious people believe in? Others don't call it the same thing, but they DO have morals and ethics! It is not only a religious idea to be a good person!

Answer 7

Good question, but we atheists are nothing like what the church leaders are fond of charicaturing us as. We are freethinking individuals who are able to see the Big Picture without the blinders of religion.

We do not live in despair, quite the contrary; freethought is incredibly refreshing, liberating, and empowering. We are not nihilists, but lovers of life who see it as all the more precious because there's no eternal afterlife.

We do not need the bribe of heaven or the threat of hell to be good people, we believe in being good for its own sake. Through science and reason, we know more about the true nature of the world we live in than your religion could ever hope to offer.

The fear of death is a natural thing, which is why you need to think hard about living your life for the moment. We are not the enemy of christians and other theists. Our quarrel is with irrationality, wishful thinking, superstitions, intellectual dishonesty, and all other forms of thinking that keep mankind mired in darkness, ignorance and hate.

Answer 8

You dont need God to have a purpose if anything God is a childish idea by which to hide behind refusing to take any responsability. Who says atheists dont have faith? I have faith in human beings who make hundreds of mistakes and who surprise me everyday, i have family and i have myself. What i do in this life is my own responsability i can can change my own fate.

Life in the objective view may be meaningless and we are sooooooooooo insignificant in the grand scheme of things but whilst we are alive and as we see everything through our subjective opinion we ourselves are the most significant thing in the universe. We live for such a short time and the chances of us existing are so extreme that doesnt our insignificance make our lives sooooooo much more worthwhile?

Answer 9

I think Penn Jilette does the best job of addressing this question, so here is his essay from "This I Believe" (link below):
___

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

Answer 10

*sigh*

OK, forget everything you think you know about atheists and agnostics, because from what you've written, you've got it almost 100% wrong. Sorry in advance for the long post, but there's a lot needing correction and explaining. At least you're asking though, that's the first step in educating yourself.

First of all, it is not true that atheists believe in nothing. We simply don't believe in anything of a supernatural nature. That still leaves a whole lot to believe in, such as the laws of nature (hasn't failed us yet!) and the potential of humanity. As for agnostics, they do not necessarily disbelieve in gods or the supernatural, they simply see no evidence of either and so prefer to withhold judgment.

It is also blatantly false that we believe that "nothing has meaning." Of course things have meaning. Meaning is by its very nature a human concept, and just because man means nothing to the cosmos doesn't mean that man means nothing to each other. See my first link below for my answer to a similar question on meaning.

Nor do we believe that "everything is chance." Water does not need divine intervention to run downhill, the laws of physics suffice just fine and the behavior of flowing downhill is anything but random. Same thing for evolution.

"There is nothing that gives particulars meaning." Well no, we humans give particulars meaning. Again, see first link below.

What is the point of humans without a divine god? Do we need one? Even a believer in gods must also believe that your god gave all of us free will. As such, our lives are ours to control and any true meaning to our lives must be supplied by each of us. Otherwise we're all just puppets in some divine program, and none of our lives has any meaning outside of this mysterious "Divine Plan". Far from troubling me, I cherish my free will and ability to find or create my own purpose in life. I even dare say that that's what your god would want too.

What "fills us up?" One need not believe in supernatural beings or mythological deities to find awe and wonder in nature. The study of the laws of nature and how various phenomena arise from and can be explained by them is a source of great intellectual interest for those of a more, um, "scientific" mind.

Life's purpose is created by each individual as a result of our free will. Regarding our having "virtually no answers," I think you've got that 180 degrees reversed. What answers has religion ever given man beyond some fancy form of "god did it"? What has religion ever taught us of agriculture, medicine, mathematics, economics, technology, the workings of life, or the laws of physics that govern our very existence? What has religion taught us of morality that either wasn't already borrowed from existing moral systems, or that which is barbaric and needing to be thrown out? Do you really think prohibitions on eating shrimp, or stoning a child to death for talking back to his parents is a rational basis for society? (Both are in the bible.)

If your god is "dead or nonexistent" then far from all else being lost, I would say all is gained. There is a reason why the time period when man was ruled by religion was called the Dark Ages. Religion, taken to its logical conclusion as it was then (and is today in modern theocracies), is antithetical not just to science but to progress, freedom and civilization.

Have we ever thought about these things? "Yes" would be an understatement.... The real question is, have you? Have you REALLY thought about these things, objectively and unblinded by your beliefs and your desire for them to be true?