Good Afternoon
Offline I just realized that there was an introduction forum...
My name is Weston, and I am, indeed, an Atheist. (How do I get that blue label that some of you have?) I'm also an aspiring author. I used to be a Christian (or at least I would have called myself a Christan), but then I stopped going to church and went through a rough divorce between my parents, that involved my mother trying to turn us violently against my father. This isn't, despite contrary to popular belief, what drove me to atheism. I went to atheism simply because I stopped being exposed to religious belief and was taught at schools that weren't under fire to teach creationism or intelligent design. I eventually just stopped believing because I found religion to be ridiculous. How could there be a talking snake, a world flood, and all of this magical stuff at the time of Jesus Christ, but not now in the year 2011? What happened to these large miraculous events that happened so often in ancient times? Herodotus, a historian, reported that the temple of Delphi magically defended itself and that a tidal wave took out the Persians after they took down a statue of Posiedon. Does that mean that Zeus and them exist? Have we been horribly deluded this whole time and Christians and Atheists are both wrong? Why did these miraculous things (Herodotus also reported that an army of dead fish came back to life) happen so much in ancient times, but they seldom happen now? Did they really exist? Did they really happen? Or is the entire thing based upon a mistake, to quote TGBaker.
I think people are not trustworthy when it comes to reporting the supernatural. David Hume made this point. Our sense can be decieved and many of the claims of the miraculous turn out to be false. He is not assuming that miracles don't happen, but just saying that the claims of miracles usually are not what we take them to be. He is not being circular or deductive. There is such a thing as delusion, hallucination (both personal and group, despite popular myth), hearing voices, and jus general misunderstanding. I don't think the Gospels are right when they tell us that Jesus rose from the dead. I don't think that Herodotus was right when he implied the existence of Posiedon and that Delphi magically defended itself. I don't believe that because I think he was mistaken. I think that things are not capable of defending themselves.
I think the religions are based on misunderstandings.
Our job on this Earth, is to take care of each other. Something that we have ultimately failed at doing, hence why we are so miserable.
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Thats what gets me about believers, they do not want to see the scientifically absurd shit in their holy book as being a myth(any label of religion) yet rightfully point at other people with different holy books and rightfully say "that is absurd".
The fact is even believers are atheists when it comes to the claims of other believers. The only difference between the believer and the atheist is that we are atheistic to one more god than they are.
There are lots of moral reasons to reject the omni-concepts of the god of Abraham, but those are not the core reason.
What ALL deity/god/invisible friend claims have in common is the person who believes it swallows the idea that a thought can exist without a material process. That is the core reason I reject all diety/god/invisible friend claims.
The ancient Egyptians believed as much as any devout Christian/Muslim/Jew, in their sun god, as modern monotheists believe in theirs today. They literally believed that the sun was a thinking being. If they could only understand that their modern monotheism is just as superstitious and rooted in wishful thinking, how quickly they could accept reality.
And you mentioned your rough times with your parents. No, that is not a good argument to accept or reject a claim, as you indicated. The bad that happen in life does not need Lex Luthor to explain anymore than the good in life can be explained by Mickey Mouse.
Super natural god claims are merely reflections of human ignorance and selfish narcissism. Humans invent gods to placate their emotions so they don't have to face the reality that life is a mere blip in cosmic time and the universe has no plan.
I forget who said "If horses had gods, their gods would look like horses". Humans want to think they are special, but the reality is that billions of years from now when we go extinct, all the god claims will die with our species because there will be no future generation to sell these myths to.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Hello, welcome to the forum.
If you keep posting, a moderator or admin will attach the 'atheist' tag under your username eventually.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
You mean like I just did?
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Welcome to the forum