A question for Atheists?

Question

I would like to know where anyone who is Atheist gets their beliefs, and what are they? I don't know much about the subject, and would like to hear some answers first hand. I'm not here to badger, critcize, or mock. I truly would like to know. P.S. I feel that the Christians out there who do mock and all are the ones in the wrong.

I was taught about 'faith' and 'everything happens for a reason' but it don't make sense to me. All the "miracles" I have witnessed can be explained by science. The churches I have gone to say youre going to hell if you don't pay tithes. I would rather take the money and give it to someone who needs it. I don't know, maybe Im goin to hell for thinking this way. Also, 'speaking in tongues' all the times I have heard it, it sounded like the same thing, no matter who was doing it!

Thanks guys. So, what I gathered is if I decide there is no God, then I wouldn't be considered atheist?

Answer 1

I developed my beliefs on my own. I began to question things I was being "taught" at church and found the answers to be very disturbing, especially when I was told we aren't to question god or the bible. That alone made me question why I was sort of being forced into religion... the more I question and learned, the more I realized that it was not for me and I couldn't understand how others would not want to question or learn more about their own beliefs.

My parents hate that I am atheist and my dad even goes so far as to try and pay me to go to church. I figure after a few years of religious debates with me asking him questions he cannot or will not answer that he would give up, but I still get the offer of $50 a Sunday kind of thing to show up, like one hour at church is going to take back 20 years of education.

Answer 2

It's more a shedding of beliefs than getting them. The world a spooky place to the inexperienced. One thing the human mind consistently does to relieve anxiety is to come up with an explanation, even when it isn't known. Human ignorance creates superstitious answers as both a way to "understand" and "deal with" the unknown. And these superstitions often "work" thanks to random chance and a tendency to forget the times when it doesn't. But at some point, given enough experience, either perfectly natural explanations are discovered or the superstition is exposed and no longer relieves the anxiety. This point of disillusionment can be disturbing, yet liberating, as the believer recognizes s/he has been playing an endless game of "let's pretend". Consider the moment when you realized Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny were just stories, not real. Atheism takes that understanding to its logical conclusion: supernatural beings do not exist and everything ultimately has a natural explanation.

Answer 3

We are, first and foremost, skeptics. We question everything and only believe that which holds up to scrutiny. (Personally I think how well you can handle criticism in directly proportional to how well you can handle the idea that others exist. In short, sacred =evil).

And, there are two truisms we use to determine the truth; "once you eliminate the impossible,mwhatever remains, however improbable,must be the truth" and "whenever there are two or more possabile explanations for something, the one with the smallest number of unsupported assumptions is probably, not necessarily, but probably correct.

Other than that, we vary. even Atheism itself varies from atheist to atheist, which is why we have the Dawkins scale;
7 absolute atheist -definitely no god
6 de facto atheist- probably no god
5 strong agnostic- maybe no god
4 absolute agnostic - don't know
3 weak agnostic - maybe a god
2 de facto theist - probably a god
1 absolute theist - definitely a god
0 psycho- I speak to a god
-1 messiah complex - god is my father
-2 god complex - I am god
(I added 0, -1 and -2 because someone claimed Mao was an atheist who thought he was god and I was trying to figure out exactly how little sense that makes)

Politically we vary from liberal to communist to anarchist to libertarian. Maybe other things too.
Philosophy, in my experience, is the subject Atheists disagree on more than anything.

Answer 4

My personal belief is that it is a mistake to hold any belief too firmly. Through the study of other cultures and seeing how many of them have a torture lined up for those who go against the customs of the tribe (which vary from culture to culture) and how they tend to reward those who believe like the predominant alpha males of said culture, it makes sense that organized religion, while it may contain some truth, is based on methods of controlling people. Now, a lot of people have a concept of "god", "tao", "the universe", "the id", et cetera, but in the pure form, the creative force is rarely seen as some judgemental lifeform who wants to spend eternity torturing people who don't think a certain way on Earth. there is no problem with letting your life revolve around a higher ideal than the physical self (peace, love, or something along those lines), but there is no need to relegate yourself to a life of servitude and slavery in what may very well be your only time that you'll ever have. If you really want the truth, I'm of the opinion that it will come; try meditation, reading, fasting, talking to people you regard as wise... that's what I do anyway.

Answer 5

Hello Amanda,

I am an agnostic atheist.
I just would like to tell you that atheism is not a belief asserting any truth about the world. Unlike the way theism says there IS a god or gods, atheism makes no "positive" assertion. It does not say that god does not exist, but instead, it does not belief in God, thus lacking belief of any deity.
This concept is slightly hard to follow for some so let me try to expand on this point a little further.
Theism claims that there is a god or gods. This is a positive statement of existence of something. Atheism, unlike what many people believe, it makes no statements like that. It is simply a default position. It makes neither a positive nor a negative statement of existence of something.
So in conclusion, atheism is not a belief that is learned. It is simply holding a default position on the issue of god.
I hope that helped.

Answer 6

Atheists as a group have one common belief: That there is no God. Beyond that, we're... kind of like everyone else.

Morality is largely defined by society. The same goes for political views, what football team you root for, etc, etc.

The God of the Old Testament demands much from humans that we would find reprehensible and immoral today. The New Testament still finds slavery to be at least permissible. If the Word of God is fixed and unchanging, it's getting farther and farther away from where we are as a species and a society.

We get our beliefs from the same places you get yours, with the likely exception of churches. Parents, admired figures, sports stars (it happens), books, philosophers, personal experience, and logical reasoning.

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Answer 7

If by beliefs you mean a system on how to live our lives, that simply comes from logic and reason, and anyone, regardless of if they believe in God or not, if they are good people, they would simply treat others how they want to be treated, this is not associated with any sort of religion.

Atheism is a philosophical view. Most "beliefs" on how to live can be obtained from philosophy and do not require the following of any religion.

Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods[1] or rejects theism.[2] - Wikipedia

To me religion is just not logical, i can not bring myself to believe what is written in the bible or quran or any other "religious scriptures". Lack of real evidence and just plain logic tell me that I can not believe in this view of "God". However, i will say that i do not deny the flat out existance of something else, i just do not think that something else is God as defined by the various religious views. Religion is a human invention... and a higher power or "god" is not. So tying one in with the other just seems illogical to me.

Answer 8

First off, an atheists beliefs come from the feeling that believing in a creator is too "out there". Also, it is difficult to say what ALL atheists believe because we all believe something different. There is scientology, which says that science is behind everything in the Universe. Most atheists, including myself, believe that the Universe was brought about in billions and billions of years. I feel that religion is an organized way to connect with yourself. It allows you to feel connected with the world. It gives people hope. Personally, I can find hope without religion. It is just as hard for an atheist to understand God as it is for Religious persons to understand atheists. Oh and of course I believe in evolution and in the relation of different species. Also I strongly believe in other life in the universe, as well as the Big Bang.

Answer 9

Religion like Marx said (I´m not a Communist) Religion is the opium of the masses. As I see it, Organized religion is the best business in the world, and they pay no taxes, besides it is a way to control the mind of believers. I don't mock or criticize them, I just don´t get involved. If there is a god, he is an absent owner. And if god is so power full, Why does he permits the devil to be his competitor? Darwin has been proved right.

Answer 10

Well I've seen more evidence for Santa Claus than Jesus in my life. At least Santa brought me presents. Also the Bible and Koran are just so obviously hand me down scripts from old tribal grey beards trying to figure the universe out without any of the benefits or instruments we have now. Also organised churches behave more like MacDonald's Corp. than anything spiritual. It's obvious really...