Why are you an atheist?

[jarrlous]

Just doing research on atheism for my first post on my upcoming blog site.

The following questions are for atheists;

1) Why are you an atheist?

2) How do you benefit from atheism?

3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?

[Ancient of Years]

Just doing research on atheism for my first post on my upcoming blog site.

The following questions are for atheists;

1) Why are you an atheist?

2) How do you benefit from atheism?

3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?

I prefer the term non-theist so people do not try to assign me to a pigeon-hole.

1) Why are you a non-theist?

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 137#715137


2) How do you benefit from non-theism?

How do you benefit from knowing the world is round?


3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

‘Objection’ is the wrong word. The NT can be seen to be attempts to explain problems in early Christianity. There is no reason to take it seriously.

Example: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 812#750812


4) Why is it important for non-theism to grow?

People can believe whatever they believe as long as they do not hurt anyone and do not deny the knowledge we have gained about the real world on ideological grounds. My guess is that non-theism will grow. But campaigns to achieve that carry the danger of creating ‘us against them’ ideologies, the main problem in the world today.

[Bust Nak]

1) Why are you an atheist?
I am an atheist because there doesn't appear to be any gods.

2) How do you benefit from atheism?
I don't benefit from atheism, instead I benefit from living in a secular society, you don't have to be an atheist to get that benefit.

3) What are your major objections to Christianity?
Primarily because it doesn't appear to be true; secondly at best it create an atmosphere where fundamentalism can grow, at worse Christianity out right promotes it.

4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?
It's not important for atheism to grow as such, it's just important for religion to lose the fundamentalism, which resists secularism.

[Divine Insight]

Just doing research on atheism for my first post on my upcoming blog site.

If you want to truly understand "atheism" my first suggestion is to understand that atheism is not a belief that there is no God. It's simply a recognition that no current theism is compelling or convincing. So many atheists take the stance that they simply see no reason to believe in a God until compelling evidence can be given for one.

The other thing to be fully aware of is that atheism is not the opposite of Christianity. In other words, it's not like a person is either an atheist or they believe in the Biblical God. There are clearly many other concepts of "God" that can be considered. Christianity is basically based upon Hebrew mythology. It's also only one of several factions of Hebrew mythology and truly has nothing special to offer in terms of world religions in general.

The following questions are for atheists;

1) Why are you an atheist?

Well, as I mentioned above, atheism is not a belief that there is no God. It's merely a recognition that there is no compelling or convincing theism to be had.

When speaking in terms of all world religious, or spiritual, or mystical philosophies I see the most compelling theism in various Eastern Mysticism religions, such as some forms of Buddhism. I cannot rule those out in terms of being impossible. However not being able to rule them out does not automatically rule them in. All it means is that they may or may not be true. They could still be just an unproven guess. A man-made ideology and fantasy.

I do lean toward Eastern Mysticism when considering the possible existence of a God. If a God exists Eastern Mysticism is the most likely spiritual philosophy to be true.

2) How do you benefit from atheism?

It's the only honest position I can take. Therefore you could say that I benefit from being an atheist by knowing that I'm being totally open and honest with myself, other people, and any God that might exist.

Remember, atheism is not a claim that a God does not exist. It's merely a rejection of all known theologies because they are not compelling.

3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

Too many too mention. However to sum it up in a nutshell, Christianity is based upon the Bible and the Bible is extremely self-contradictory in terms of what it claims "God" is like. And these contradictions are impossible to justify. Therefore I have concluded that the Bible cannot possibly be a true description of any God as written literally verbatim. And it is also my position that if there exists a "God" that is different from what is literally described verbatim in the Bible, well, then it's clearly not the Biblical God.

So the Biblical God can't possibly exist as described verbatim in the Bible. And this is absolutely true for the God of the Old Testament, so this rules out not only Christianity but also Judaism and Islam. Basically all the Abrahamic religions are necessarily false. They are clearly nothing more than man-made fiction having no more merit than Greek Mythology.

In the case of Christianity, the New Testament is every bit as self-contradictory as the Old Testament. But in addition to that, the crucifixion of the demigod Jesus to make salvation possible for humanity is so extremely immoral and absurd that of all the Abrahamic religions Christianity is the least believable to be certain.

4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?

It's not important to me that atheism grows at all. I actually have no problem with people believing in a spiritual or mystical essence to reality. I see no problem with that in and of itself. If everyone wanted to be come a mystic I wouldn't have a problem with that myself. As long as they don't turn it into an institution of religious bigotry and hatred toward those who don't believe as they do.

However I must also add that I would love to see the Abrahamic religions fall out of fashion. Especially Christianity and Islam, the two most hateful religions in the world today. Both of these religions are based upon the concept of a jealous wrathful God who will supposedly hate people who refuse to worship him. (or worse yet hatefully accuse people who don't believe in him of hating him. ). Judaism makes the same claim within their Torah, but the Jews never seem to have become as obnoxious about this as the Christians and Muslims have become.

Christians use Jesus as weapon of hatred and religious bigotry. The Muslims use Allah and the Qur'an as their religious weapon of hatred toward unbelievers.

Both of these religions amount to nothing more than extreme religious bigotry that use their Gods and/or demigod Jesus to belittle and condemn everyone who doesn't join and support their religious cult.

So yes, while I have no particular interest in seeing "atheism" grow I would love nothing more than to see the hate cults of Christianity and Islam die.

More benign religions like Buddhism I don't have any problem with. I also see no problem with religions like Wicca, etc. At least they don't go around accusing everyone who doesn't believe in their Moon Goddess of being a heathen who has rejected God.

If people would rather be atheists that would be fine with me. But I have no problem with decent religions that don't use their imagined Gods as weapons of religions bigotry and hatred toward non-believers.

If a person can believe in a God without using that as a weapon of degradation toward those who don't believe in their God then that's fine. But with Christianity and Islam that's next to impossible because both Christianity and Islam are fundamentally based on the same original "Jealous God" fables that demand that their God hates anyone who doesn't love, worship, and obey him. So this religious bigotry is built-into the dogma of these religions and is therefore impossible to deny whilst still claiming to "believe" in these religions.

So I'm not necessarily a supporter of "atheism", but I am very much in support of the demise of the Abrahamic religions.

[OnceConvinced]

1) Why are you an atheist?

There are many reasons. Nearly 100. Here is a link to my notes here on this site which lists the reasons why I am an atheist. Some may disagree with the points I have made, but to me they are very valid and real points:

94 reasons why I no longer believe


2) How do you benefit from atheism?


There is not necessarily any benefit from atheism. It is simply a disbelief in any gods. When one is forced to face reality, one has no choice in the matter. My disbelief in any gods is in no way something I wanted or chose. It just is.

In fact when I think about it, there are less benefits being an atheist than being a Christians, eg, as a Christian there was the comfort that God had everything under control, that he had a plan for me, and that I would never die but go to Heaven. There was a lot of comfort in Christianity. However now as an Atheist I no longer have any of that. However there is no way that I can force myself to believe again. It just doesn't work that way.

If I were to try to come up with benefits from no longer being a Christian and now being an atheist, I would say the following, however this is not so much about being an atheist but about no longer being a Christian:

I can now:
• Create my own purposes in life
• Accept others for who they are. I no longer condemn atheists, witches, gays and other minority groups.
• Accept hardships and trials for what they are - a consequence of evolution.
• Accept myself for who I am. I no longer have to beat myself up over human nature.
• Be moral because it's important to me, not to earn Brownie points from God. (and yes my morals are still intact, despite supposedly being manipulated by the devil as many Christians would like to believe)
• Be free of religious rituals like attending church, prayer, communion, quiet times, bible study etc.
• Live life to its fullest not having to worry about pleasing an imaginary, wrathful, vengeful, sadistic, genicidal, misogynist God.




3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

There are way too many to list. My list I linked to previously should give some of those reasons.



4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?

I think it's important that we as a civilization face reality and do away with silly religious fantasies. This world will not last forever and it won't be because God has no further use for it, it will be because we have destroyed it. If we are complacent and believe God is looking after us, we are doomed.

Also having religious folk in power is just so dangerous. If they believe God is telling them to go to war... or worse drop nuclear bombs, then once again we are doomed.

Too many people are living in religious delusion and fantasies and are putting that upon their children, indoctrinating them. People are spending their times following religious fantasies instead of living their lives to the fullest. People are persecuting others because they don't believe in their religious fantasies. People are killing others because they don't worship or follow their gods. People stand by and do nothing but pray rather than getting off their butts and actually taking some kind of positive action. I could list more if I had the time.

[jarrlous]

[Replying to Divine Insight]

Christianity is based upon the Bible and the Bible is extremely self-contradictory in terms of what it claims "God" is like. And these contradictions are impossible to justify.

Just curious what are these contradictions?

[jarrlous]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

 Both of these religions are based upon the concept of a jealous wrathful God who will supposedly hate people who refuse to worship him. (or worse yet hatefully accuse people who don't believe in him of hating him.

Just curious why you think the Christian God hates people who refuse to worship Him?

[OnceConvinced]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

 Both of these religions are based upon the concept of a jealous wrathful God who will supposedly hate people who refuse to worship him. (or worse yet hatefully accuse people who don't believe in him of hating him.

Just curious why you think the Christian God hates people who refuse to worship Him?

I can't answer for DI, but I see it the same way. God hates those who don't worship him. The obvious reason is that he's going to have all those that don't worship and acknowledge him thrown into Hell. (as only those who acknowledge him and put him up on a pedestal get to live).

To put someone through such an unnecessary and sadistic death is definitely not a loving act. Only a hateful being would do such a thing.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by jarrlous]

1) Why are you an atheist?

Because to this day, not one argument or evidence presented that is claimed to somehow prove this that or the other god or spiritual belief has withstood my scrutiny. It always falls apart sooner or later.

2) How do you benefit from atheism?

It would help if you defined atheism here. For me, I'll use the definition of a non belief in a god.
No, it doesn't help. Not by itself.

3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

I'll give three.
(1) There is little to no data in support of its various claims
(2) It supports what is in my eyes gullibility instead of healthy rational skepticism
(3) It promotes what are in my eyes immoral and unethical actions

4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?

It again depends on what you mean by atheism. I would prefer it if more and more people were atheist, but on the grounds of healthy rational skepticism, and not just as a rebellious counter-attack to an authority.

[Danmark]

Just doing research on atheism for my first post on my upcoming blog site.

The following questions are for atheists;

1) Why are you an atheist?

2) How do you benefit from atheism?

3) What are your major objections to Christianity?

4) Why is it important for atheism to grow?

1. Like AoY, I prefer "non theist." "Atheist" can be a conversation stopper and can come across as aggressive. I see no evidence of a god with a human like personality. The god of popular theism seems so obviously human like that 'his' portrayal in the Bible gives evidence it is a human creation. I also think it is error to use the term 'atheist' since it may acknowledge the default position is theism. I don't play golf, but I don't define myself as an 'a-golfer.'

2. I see no direct benefit for non theism; rather it is simply a by product of naturalism or the scientific method.

3. My objection is to false beliefs in general. I have no problem with Christianity, other than I think to the extent it relies on a belief in the supernatural it relies on a false premise. I object to any system that relies on a false foundation, particularly if that system is used to justify beliefs and opinions and imbue them with a pretense of absolute authority.

4. What I see as important is the growth of clear thinking and at least an attempt at objective analysis that does not rely the reflexive application of ideology. Non theism is simply one of several results of trying to understand the universe without being hobbled by false beliefs.