atheists....do you ever doubt yourself?

Question

do you ever think...but what if there is a God and I do spend eternity in Hell......

please be honest. i know you want to sound, sane, tough, or cool.
just be honest.

Answer 1

As an atheist I doubted my non-belief a lot. I was born and raised atheist, I did not come to religion until i was 27.

Answer 2

I do like to sound sane... does that mean I'm not truthful? Is the logic that religious people are crazy, and I'm also crazy, but afraid to admit it? Weird...

And obviously I have thought about these things, how could I have an opinion without researching the facts? If you mean do I regularly doubt my life choises, the answer is no.

There is no god, there is really no point in pondering what non-existant superbeings might or might not do to something I don't think I possess :)

Answer 3

Why should I even make the effort to answer honestly when you assume atheists do it to sound, sane, tough, and cool. Did you ever think that about spending an eternity in the underworld if you didn't believe in Zeus?

Answer 4

>atheists....do you ever doubt yourself?

As a freethinker, it is my duty to question EVERYTHING. Logic, from a subjective point of view, deals only in probabilities, not absolutes. Technically, there is no such thing as 'proof', there is only 'sufficient evidence'.

>do you ever think...but what if there is a God and I do spend eternity in Hell...

You seem to be referring to Pascal's Wager. If you haven't heard of the concept under that name, you can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

However, from an atheist viewpoint, Pascal's Wager doesn't actually work, for at least three different reasons. To wit:
1. There is a difference between worshipping God and actually believing in him. There is nothing stopping me from closing my eyes and putting my hands together and saying thanks for such-and-such and can you please do such-and-such. But that doesn't mean I actually believe God exists; in fact, it would be rather difficult for me to convince myself that God existed in the face of the evidence. So if God judges people on what they truly believe, rather than on what they say (and possibly appear to believe), then it is just as difficult for me to achieve salvation. In other words, I may not have as much choice in the matter as it would appear.
2. Even if I can be sure I can convince myself to believe in God, the fact is, there are thousands of religions in the world, and most of them contradict each other. How am I ever to find the right one? It appears that no matter which one I choose, the chances are over 99.9% that I will have gotten the wrong one, in which case I will go to Hell anyway despite all my efforts. This is because faith, being not based on the evidence or anything else in the real world, is arbitrary. I can never KNOW that the religion I've chosen is the right one. I might THINK I know, after all that's what faith is all about, but people of every other religion THINK they know just as much as I do, so in the end it comes out to the same thing.
3. And most importantly, from my atheist point of view, I actually believe that atheists are MORE likely to go to Heaven than theists are. Why? Well, from what I can tell, the evidence strongly suggests that God does not exist. Which means that if God DOES exist, he has specifically chosen not to provide evidence for his existence, and knows that rational people who use logic will come to the conclusion that he does not exist. And as anyone should be able to tell, it simply makes MUCH more sense for God to reward rational thinking and logical deducation than it does for him to reward blindly and dogmatically following an arbitrary religion unsupported by the evidence.

Answer 5

Sure, I've considered that I might be wrong. I challenge my beliefs (well, disbelief) at every opportunity.

If your god exists, and I end up spending eternity in hell...well, then I guess that just backs up my belief that the God of the Bible is nothing more than a volatile, tantrum-throwing megalomaniac or an abusive spouse, not the loving father as he is often described.

Answer 6

There's not much to doubt. I simply don't believe in something I have no reason to believe in. I suppose you could say I doubt in the sense that I keep an open mind: maybe there's some kind of god, and maybe someday I'll be convinced of that.

But really, not with any of the cartoonish scenarios of the major religions, so worrying about hellfire and brimstone are pretty far out of the picture.

Answer 7

No. I don't know what will happen when I die. But despotic bronze age desert God concepts of vengeance and punishment don't impress me enough to give pause. They are so transparently a product of reworked myths and jealous, insecure, misogynistic male minds (also oddly reminiscent of other Middle Eastern religions before and after Christianity) that I would consider myself un-sane to even lose a moment's sleep over it.

I'm always 100% honest. I was raised that way by atheist parents. I can't believe anyone would think it 'cool' to not believe that stuff. That's like saying "don't try and be 'cool' and 'tough' by saying you don't believe in leprechauns, or Quetzacoatl, or Allah, or Zeus, or Isis" etc..

Huh?? What's with THAT?

Answer 8

No, I have no doubts about that. There are just no gods. Period.

However, I have self-doubts often, but I go ahead and take my chances anyway. As Bertrand Russell said : "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubt."

I like to flatter myself a little and believe I have acquired at least some wisdom along the way. Or, at any rate, that age didn't just come by itself.

Answer 9

No . That just doesn't make sense !
I try to be a good person and use my brain . That's all anyone should be
*required* to do .
I don't worry about any of the 1000's of gods man made or any of their threatened punishments . I do worry about being punished by their followers though . I might make the mistake of naming my Teddy Bear the wrong name , or look at a porno mag in a *crazed* moment lol .

Answer 10

Atheism is itself doubt. Of course I think I may be wrong....because I don't believe anything! If any of the things I am skeptical about turn out to be true, then I am wrong, and should not have doubted that it was true all along. Yet, I have no desire to force myself to believe in something just to avoid going to Hell in the slight chance that such a place actually exists.

Answer 11

Not about religion. Never.

Pascal's Wager is not new here. Cheers.

By the way, I rarely have a problem with being honest, since I don't really care how I sound or what anyone thinks of what I say. You don't know as much about atheists as you think you do, if you think you know how we "want to sound" or think that you have to ask us to be honest.