Why am I (not)an atheist?

Any thread based on religion becomes boring, but that does not give you the right to start attacking someone's belief in a thread that is not about the existence of god. This is the reason why I rarely come to SD anymore.

The

Reason

I

Don't

Believe

In

God

Is

Because

Why

Should

I

?


Not

Like

It

Has

Helped

Me

In

Any

Sort

Of

Way
.

Mod Note: I received a report that this thread may not be suitable for the Serious Discussion section. However, after some consideration, especially after reading through the earlier posts, there are some noteworthy replies and thus, it should remain here... for now.

Thank you for your kind understanding.

Getting back on topic, everyone has their own opinions and views on certain matters. In this case, it would be belief in a particular religion or not at all. For some, belief in a religion may allow them to perform actions which they never thought possible. On the other hand, there are individuals who trust in their own confidence and abilities.

But, you see, people doesn't need a reason to firmly believe on anything. It just happens. So long as it doesn't change our lives, there should be no problem. If you try to find sense in these things you'll never find an answer

I'm an athiest partly because I don't want to be involved with religion and what surrounds it.
Actually, I have never really thought too deeply about my faith and I don't plan to change that, feels free to me. I don't think Atheism fits me, but agnostic doesn't either, I just don't really give mind towards religion.

Also in response to the above debate, 'I don't see why not' is not debating language, that can be used anywhere, quite literally. 'I don't see why we shouldn't mass murder' Religion might not have changed your life, but it certainly has mine, in a bad way.

Im an athiest because i dont see why i should have a religious belief, I dont need support from an mythical entity, i would like support from tangible people i can rely on. I dont care who created us, all i know is i am here now, and i wont devote my life to being thankful to that being or to preparing myself for the afterlife.

My grandfather was the first one in our family to denounce religion. He was raised in a very strict and conservative religious setting and the relationship with his family suffered somewhat when he openly "became" an atheist as an adult.

Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I'm an atheist is because I was raised into one, which gives for some very cynical contemplation...

I guess the "humanist" approach would be raising children with a non biased view on religion, but last time I checked the world was not that perfect.

My bud once said he wasn't an atheist anymore and didn't want to be associated with them because of the arrogant social connotation it carries. I laughed and said he was stuck with us anyway because he was still a skeptic, and possessed the only qualification of being an atheist, he didn't believe in a god or deity.

I am a theist mainly because it is easier to believe that there is something more to life than what we experience in our lifetime. It simply allows my mind to focus on other things and avoid the problem of fearing death. There is no way of knowing what happens after death, so why not just take the wondering out of the equation?Even though it may seem cowardly, the piece of mind granted by being a theist allows me to live a life that is relatively simple, which I believe is the point of being a theist.

I am an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in the existence of a supreme being -much higher developed beings from other planets don't count- but I also can't prove the non-existence of a "god" for 100%.
I just think that chances are very high that there is no omnipotent being.

Uh-huh. I'm sure that laziness is the same reason why you've never even touched an original Hebrew religious text to examine it. Heck, I don't even think you've read the terrible English translations that make up the first half of the modern Christian Bible.

If you don't understand a concept, you have no right to have an opinion on it.

That's like saying "I hate oranges" without ever tasting an orange.

Shame on you.

Although I don't believe in a supernatural being, I do believe in a force greater than myself. I don't think there is an after life, but reincarnation might be possible. I believe just for the sake of having something to believe in.

Because you read Hebrew maybe ?

Even though that doesn't change anything , your point is totaly invalid for many reasons .

First i don't have to read the scientologist bible to know that it's total bullshit , it's clearly bullshit . My point is that you don't have to know everything abouth something to know that it's bullshit .

Second , you say that but i'm sure you didn't read yourself every other books from other religions but even though , you don't believe in them . My point here is that you don't preach yourself what you're telling him to do .

First and foremost, the difference in my situation is that I will not voice a religious opinion about a religion of which I have not read the holy books of. He did.

Second, I didn't know that you had ESP. Can you tell me what bread is going to be used on the sandwich made by that elderly woman down the street?

I didn't see him do that either ...


And please by the name of god , sarcasms do not belong in a serious discussion , if you want to make them go in random . If you have nothing to counterargue then just shut yourself .

I have no idea if I am an atheist, or some other else. But I am a Christian, yet I don't believe in God, mostly because of this:



It would be inconvenient for me to stop receiving presents during Christmas.

But joking aside, I used to be your above average Christian. Loony enough to believe anything, but not enough loony to just spend my entire life hoping for a miracle, wasting money to buy religious items.

At this point, I was a High School Student. And I guess this is where I started to lose faith in God. Everything just went downhill when I entered High School. And even though I prayed everyday, gave the church 20 pesos per mass, nothing happened. They say that for God to help you, you must help yourself. And I was, like, "what? Doesn't that mean you're just working hard? God is NOT helping you". But this motto has been beaten into every christian mind that I know of, that I took it for the norm and didn't question it further. So I worked hard and prayed harder, but everything just fell harder.

That is until I reached College that my eyes started to really open. Now at this point, I started to question Christianity. I started to skip masses. And I only went to mass because my parents loved it.

Then one day, while surfing the web, I found a video title named George Carlin - Religion is Bullshit. I was curious, not only because i've heard that this Carlin dude was funny, but I heard he also spouted sense. Philosophically Funny, you could call it. I opened it, and I laughed so hard, because questions that I had about Christianity, but never bothered to question further, the dude answered it while making people laugh. Which, BTW, is a great idea to make the idea stick to their heads, make a joke that is memorable. And this guy did it.

After watching him, I seriously began to question Christianity, read books. blogs, and sites that question not only religion, but sometimes even politics and life itself. For once in my life, I expended my knowledge, one that wasn't bound by Christian thinking. But rather one that was thirsty for truth and knowledge. At the end of it all, I found loopholes almost everywhere. Christianity was full of loopholes that counteract not only the bible itself, but also today's modern Christians.

Today, I don't like to argue with other religious people, mostly Christians, especially with extremists, because I knew that no matter what I say, they're not gonna believe in it. They've already been sucked into Christianity. I guess I was just lucky before I myself got sucked into it.

I keep my thoughts to myself because, well, what Lelouch has already explained. I am born in a community where 95% of the people are Christians. And until the day that religion is finally considered obsolete and unneeded, I will keep on this "farce", as others might call it. A christian that doesn't believe in God.

When I was younger, I was an avid follower of my parents' religion, and was very interested in the myths I was told.

But over time, I started finding these beliefs baseless and bizarre. 4 years ago, I made my first (and only) girlfriend. She was Muslim, and I was an atheist (who was formerly Hindu). Even though we were very passionate about each other, we would debate hours on a stretch about whether god existed or not. There wasn't really a winner, and since it was a healthy discussion, we didn't break up. Over time we have matured together and are still a happy couple.
*Alert: Don't read the next paragraph if you are sensitive to gore*

I sometimes try to imagine a person being killed. He is on a railway track, and a train is speeding towards him at over 120 kilometers an hour. Now let's slow time down. As the person comes under the rails, he (I can't imagine it happening to a girl) first loses his legs, but he's still alive right? next up his entire body is sliced off, leaving his head rolling on the grass beside the train. Now that he's dead in a few seconds, where did his consciousness go? Did it fly off to god? But when he goes to heaven/hell, how does he look like? Like his former self?

What if he died of a heart attack instead? What if some scientists preserve his body, and in a few hundred years develop technology that can give a corpse life? Would he have his former memories? Of course not, because the data stored in his brain in the form of electrical signals was wiped out when he died. So, where did the memories go?

When a life starts from a cell, it doesn't have a conscience. How does an embryo get a consciousness, then?

Questions like these certainly sway me to atheism, and since I have been studying science for a long, long time. I cannot imagine a God. Because logic butts in everywhere.

Thanks for letting me share my experiences.

I'm Agnostic because I couldn't keep kidding myself into following a religion such as
Christianity when it is so full of hypocrisy and contradictions and has nothing
to back it up but lies and unprovable myths. I am however, open to spirituality.
There might be a whole other existence that awaits us on the other side but no one
knows and no one can know for sure. I'm not saying god exists or doesn't exist as I
do not know and can't know. I simply am just open minded.

The OP does not want this to turn into a debate, but please stay on topic regarding your belief or religion.

If someone states something as dense as "ai d0nt h@f 2 reed it 2 no d@t it i5 c0w f3c35!!!1", than I am going to give a sarcastic response.