I’m an Atheist. So are you (almost)!
reverendhornibastard
Depraved Deacon of Degeneracy
I am an atheist. I don’t believe in a god or gods. If you stop and think about it briefly, you will realize that your beliefs concerning deities are nearly identical to mine.
There are innumerable gods available for us to believe in. Even if we limit ourselves to the gods currently in vogue, the list of available deities available for worship is quite lengthy. If we also included the countless gods that long ago fell out of fashion, there is a vast cornucopia of gods available for us to venerate.
If we worship one of the currently popular gods (like the god of Abraham, or Shiva, Ganesha, Amitābha, Odin, Ahura Mazda, Ratnasambhava, or Amatsu-Kami) we might be considered pious. But if we worship a god that was long ago tossed into the dustbin of religious history (like Thor, Zeus, Apollo, Neptune, Tlaloc, Macuil Cuetzpalin, Enki or Igaluk) we will likely be thought mad.
There are over 2,500 gods currently venerated around the world by existing religious groups (see An Encyclopedia of Deities by Michael Jordan - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1131… )
Most of you probably worship only one god. If so, then assuming there are currently 2,500 gods available for worship, this means you believe in 0.04% of the currently employed gods and disbelieve in 99.96% of them. Thus, your attitude towards deities, like mine, can best be characterized as “disbelief” rather than as “belief.”
Your basis for rejecting the innumerable deities currently available on the god smorgasbord is probably a lot like the basis on which I and most atheists reject a belief in gods: the paucity of credible evidence.
Your beliefs in deities are at least 99.96% consistent with the beliefs of atheists. The principal difference between your attitude toward deities and those of atheists is that atheists extend their disbelief just one deity farther than most non-atheists.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1796
There are innumerable gods available for us to believe in. Even if we limit ourselves to the gods currently in vogue, the list of available deities available for worship is quite lengthy. If we also included the countless gods that long ago fell out of fashion, there is a vast cornucopia of gods available for us to venerate.
If we worship one of the currently popular gods (like the god of Abraham, or Shiva, Ganesha, Amitābha, Odin, Ahura Mazda, Ratnasambhava, or Amatsu-Kami) we might be considered pious. But if we worship a god that was long ago tossed into the dustbin of religious history (like Thor, Zeus, Apollo, Neptune, Tlaloc, Macuil Cuetzpalin, Enki or Igaluk) we will likely be thought mad.
There are over 2,500 gods currently venerated around the world by existing religious groups (see An Encyclopedia of Deities by Michael Jordan - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1131… )
Most of you probably worship only one god. If so, then assuming there are currently 2,500 gods available for worship, this means you believe in 0.04% of the currently employed gods and disbelieve in 99.96% of them. Thus, your attitude towards deities, like mine, can best be characterized as “disbelief” rather than as “belief.”
Your basis for rejecting the innumerable deities currently available on the god smorgasbord is probably a lot like the basis on which I and most atheists reject a belief in gods: the paucity of credible evidence.
Your beliefs in deities are at least 99.96% consistent with the beliefs of atheists. The principal difference between your attitude toward deities and those of atheists is that atheists extend their disbelief just one deity farther than most non-atheists.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=1796
31 comments
He didn’t always personally pray to all of the gods. That is very time consuming. So, as his success in sports grew and he could better afford it, he hired others to do most of his praying for him.
“I think you need to believe in something, even if it’s just Karma.”
Why? What would happen if you didn’t believe in anything?
Define with as much precision as you can what you mean by “god” and then ask yourself if you believe in that.
He was on an African safari with his wife and he heard a rustling in the tall grass, all of a sudden he was face to face with a lion, well he says he prayed in Latin and made the sign of the cross, then he said the Shema, The Jewish prayer, and made a statement to Johnny, I wanted to be sure I covered all the bases;)
“ ...but I’d rather be safe than sorry”
If there is a god, it probably isn’t easy to fool. It will probably recognize feigned belief motivated by fear.
People have faith because the world we live in is too precious and beautiful to believe it occurred by accident or by chance. I can’t fathom how this world was simply left to randomness, and why our creator would give us such an emotion as compassion, etc.
The USA and Afghanistan are among the world’s most religious and lawless societies. China, Japan, the U.K., Sweden and Norway are among the most irreligious countries on the face of the Earth. I’ve spent time in all of them. Each of them has a wonderfully low rate of violent crime that I, as an American, can only envy.
When was the last time you heard or read about someone committing an act of terrorism in the name of god?
When was the last time you heard or read about anyone committing an act of terror sim in the name of atheism?
Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, religious thought is an intellectual pestilence. Religion is, by far, the biggest turd in humanity’s intellectual punch bowl.
Organized religion can do a lot of good things at local / community levels. Unfortunately, it performs less than great at national / regional levels.
There is new age concept where it is said everyone is a God and we are in different forms of single soul to experience different things. Our life is based on Karma whether we are having credit (doing good things) or debit (doing harm to others) which leads to our remaining life and may be next incarnations.
Irrespective of what we believe if we do good things in general, we and our society will be happy.
I believe you should live your life the way you want to and as long as that does not infringe on others then fine.
I tend to agree. But religion worries me.
I see religions as a threat because they demand faith which I equate with unwavering, uncritical loyalty.
Unwavering, uncritical loyalty is unhealthy in any realm but especially in politics and religion. In those arenas it is downright dangerous. History demonstrates this over and over again.
I don’t tell my children what to believe other than to never trust anyone who instructs them to “ ... shut up, don’t ask any questions and just trust and believe me.”
I hope that admonition will be enough to inoculate my kids from all the foolish superstitions that shackle people’s minds and teach them to hate one another in the name of god.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1004.htm
So you view religion as a threat because you define faith a certain way.... I would never have faith in something or someone that could not stand up to critical thinking.
If your life's purpose, your life after earthly death, etc... is important to you then you will spend the time researching the various religions. I have spent a lot of time comparing and contrasting world religions, looking for cracks. I have developed my beliefs based on my experiences and critical research NOT based on "unwavering, uncritical loyalty".
Basically live and let live, believe, or don't as you see fit, and don't try to undermine, my own, as I have no quarrel with yours.
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” — Douglas Adams
I have long ago since then became an outright atheist. But I wised up and kept that to myself.
At one point, I had the viewpoint of religion as a stain upon humanity. But...I’m not so sure. I view a lot of “enlightened” types, especially of the SJW ideology kind, in a similar camp as far as adhering to a group think and not questioning the designated higher power. And being a heretic to that means you don’t care for humanity and you’re terrible and yadda yadda.
So maybe it’s not religion inherently.
Correct. It's dogma that generates the most problems. Religion is a common dogma delivery device, but it's not the only one.
Also, quoting Douglas Adams is actually my biggest PL weakness per Muddy9's other thread. So, from the perspective of financial ruin, it's for the best that you're far away in Texas.
That doesn't prove gods exist. Also Hitler was a Christian.