Our beliefs about life

Yeah I don't know why people make a big deal out of atheism being a belief. In the end, it is.

Would you consider your disbelief in alchemy a belief in itself? How about disbelieving in astrology? The rational rejection of a belief is not in itself a belief. In the end, you are 100 percent wrong about your assessment.

@hillelslovak: sounds like a belieber to me

You are ugh............

It is literally defined as "without theism". Theism is an affirmative belief. Atheism is the lack thereof.

In the end, still a belief.

I'm sorry such simple philosophical terminology confuses you, but atheism is a position of negative belief, i.e. lack of belief. It is not an affirmative belief. That affirmative belief only comes in addition to the basic atheism, when someone concludes that "God most certainly doesn't exist" rather than 99% of atheists who merely say "there is no evidence of God's existence, thus I cannot believe in it".

If you can't grasp this very basic idea, there is no point in continuing this line of discussion. All the other proofs involving atheism not being a belief will go well over your head.

So you create a thread about openmindedness and proceed to critcise everyone that doesn't share your beliefs...

In the end it will always be a belief. You have to believe it to come to that opinion about god.

@slipknot0129: your wrong and do not understand the meaning of belief and lack of belief.

Your the most close minded person in this thread.

I believe in what there is compelling evidence to support.

Edit: Rejecting a belief is not necessarily a belief in itself. Believning in a positive claim is. To believe in a goddess is a belief (accepting a positive claim), but to reject her is not (rejecting a positive claim). Randi is far from Close Minded. Being very open to being wrong. Difference is, some people prefer not to jump to conclusions. While I do occationally move on to my conclusions, everything is in fact up to debate, and I can change my political viewpoints very fast. I never assume I am right, I always assume, I have the best conclusions with contemporary evidence. But as more evidence props up, I adapt my views. Nothing is set in stone.

No, you don't. If an atheist does not have enough evidence TO believe in a God, then what do they believe in? Nothing. "Not-God" is not an affirmative "thing" to believe in.

I just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet, but I'll try and come up with a sufficient metaphor to try and explain this to you.

@slipknot0129: i agree with you to some extent i don't have a religion but i do believe in god, i just wish people wouldn't judge others, for example when someones an atheist someChristians would start bashing them for their beliefs and ask them dumb questions as well as act like they are horrible and evil for not believing in god, On the other hand some atheist would consider it delusional or stupid to believe in god, However these are just some people hopefully people will stop judging each other, I remember when i was in Middle/High school one of my best friends she was an atheist and another one of my best friends she was a christian and there i was in-between them a non religious chick who DID believe in god, but didn't conform to religion,

Lol now that i look back they didn't really get a long with each-other, i was like the pillar for them, i hope the reason wasn't because of their beliefs but who knows XDDD

@thegerg: I thought secular agnostic would be the proper term to use for someone who doesn't have an opinion on God and doesn't affiliate with anything spiritual or supernatural. Just personally, when I hear atheist, I think of someone believing with strong belief that there can't be a God.

As gerg already explained (I think), agnosticism isn't a belief, its a statement about knowledge.

I am an agnostic atheist. I lack belief in anything supernatural (whether God, gods or the paranormal/preternatural). If there isn't evidence to support it's existence, I don't believe in it. However, I don't KNOW this to be a fact. I don't profess to know that there "is most certainly no God". Even those atheists who say such a thing don't truly "know". They are vocal gnostics, but fundamentally still agnostic. So in the end, we are all just atheists. Lacking belief in a God.

Over the years I've grown more apathetic towards the whole thing and chosen rather to live my life than worry about such a silly metaphysical thing... but when religion starts involving itself in politics, that's when I start getting riled up and feel the need to get involved.

That's still a belief. If you could come up with some way it isn't a belief, I'll believe you.

@slipknot0129: If you were to talk to 3 random people none would have the same ideas. The large majority of people simply cannot accept that this really is it. The life you lead now is all you'll have. You're not going to some shiny happy place up above the clouds.

If you spend your entire life worrying about some non existent fantasy realm where all the special chosen people go you're wasting your time.

My brain hurts!

The only thing that I have in common with other atheists is that we both reject any religion out there. There is no set of beliefs that is shared among all atheists, only a lack of belief.

Personally, I dont consider religion to be even worth my time considering. It is not worth my time and any time spent pondering religion could have been better spent pondering something meaningful.

Here are several things I identify myself long before I identify myself as agnostic atheist,

1. Empiricist
2. Humanist
3. European
4. Engineer
5. Gamer
6. Wario Fan
7. Modder
8. Political Independant
9. Sci Fi fan
10. A student of nature

Dont shift the burden of proof.

At the same time, if you believe this is all there is, your lifes going to waste too. This is the start of something, so I might as well define my soul good.

@slipknot0129: how is it a waste if I'm enjoying myself and actually living without worrying about other people's delusional mass hysteria regarding myths.

The lack of depth in life us believers have.

I find it quite impressive how a brick wall is capable of having not only a Gamespot account but also it's attempts at communication.

Even if that attempt makes no sense.

@slipknot0129: given the amount of religions that have existed and vanished to think that yours is somehow better is why there will never be peace on earth. Lack of depth indeed.

The world would be boring if everything was peaceful. You don't have to like everybody you meet. Everybody would be drone like if it were a perfect uptopia from the very get go. I'd say god did a good job making this world.

@slipknot0129: which one? Zeus? Or is he retired right now.

Whoever made this world.

Bone cancer in children, the male digestive tract going through the prostate, the larynx and pharynx sharing pipe for no reason, every animal in the food chain dying in violent misery. Yeah, really smart God. This is the problem I have with religious arguments, you always act like your God did EVERYTHING in order for one species of primate, us. He made billions of billions of planets, the vast majority being too hot or two cold for life, and all dominated by decay and entropy. But hey, he made me feel good while praying. God damn............

No matter how good things get in the universe there will always be a higher being that does better, that will turn beauty into the beast. I just see this world as perfect. This is the perfect beginning of the universe.

https://www.vice.com/read/jesus-was-a-roman-hoax-to-trick-the-jews?utm_source=vicefbus

What? All the bad things I described are the results of this being's creation. If our bodies are of his design, the fault in the design lies in the creator. What you are claiming is some classic Deepak Chopra woo woo. It sounds so deep, until you think about it for a moment. "God is the potential of all that was, all that is, and all that will ever be. In this way, God is eternal, infinite." See what I did there? It sounds profund, yet it means absolutely nothing.

That is God of the gaps reasoning. 2000 years ago, religious texts claimed knowledge of EVERYTHING. If you know nothing about the world around you, God is everywhere, doing everything. When you find out your illness is the result of micro organisms, and not a lack of worship or demons, God shrinks a little. He has lost a little territory. When you find out the our world is far older than the Bible says, and is the result of billions of years of formation due to an absurd number of variables, God poofing it into being is done away with in that instance, and shrinks furthermore. Science, and our growing understanding of our origins, and place int he larger cosmos, has pushed God so far back, you God of the gaps believers still, still use God as a name for the exotic. Seeing people do this, it is amazing to me. God is nothing but a word to describe one's own ignorance. When each one of those questions is answered, God will shrink a little more. Science shows us that the more we find out, the more we see we do not know. This will lead to new questions, and believers in one fantastical creed or another will once again take refuge in current ignorance. I think it is a pathetic thought process.

Everything has a reason. Without pain, life would be meaningless.

What are you talking about? So if pain is required, it most hold true that a supernatural force controls everything? Your line of logic does not follow a line of logic. And I hate to break it to you, life's meaning is determined by you and you alone, not some supernatural voyeur who requires the mass suffering of one species on one planet for the universe to work.

I wouldn't want to be some mindless drone without a beginning that had meaning even if it meant being born straight into literal heaven. That's why I thank god for the suffering we endure. I love that song by Cradle of Filth, Thank God for the Suffering, I resonate with that. I find beauty in the suffering we endure. Being depressed, being sad, everything.

That perverted line of reasoning makes people cause suffering. Thanking someone for hurting you is masochism, and the person hurting you is a sadist. Who but a slave thanks the master for the whip?

I just trust god is doing a good job. We endure stuff to give life meaning. Suffering through the bad times in life makes the good times even better. Living a perfect existence but without meaning would hurt the big being in the end anyways, much more than what we endure in this life.

God is not doing a good job, by any stretch of the imagination. You say suffering is a good thing. I bet the 35,000 children dying in terrible agony every day from hunger are absolutely ecstatic. I'm sure you'll attempt a pathetic riposte by saying God has a greater plan. That is obscene. I could devise a plan that does not require wanton, worldwide violence in order to achieve my goals. His goal is to get as many people into heaven as he possibly can, so they will spend eternity praising him, yet he engineers a world where the vast majority of people will live and die never hearing about Jesus Christ, greatly diminishing the amount of people who will be in Heaven. What kind of idiot is this God? And how can you pretend to be morally serious while rationalizing away injustice in this immoral manner?!

I like to think positive about everything. My opinion is that god did do a good job. This world has so much beauty, from the music to everything. It's the best gift would could get from god, the ability to define ourselves.

The world has a lot of suffering and misery too. This is what pisses me off about the religious. You are confronted with someone who is not of your belief system saying God either allows evil to happen, or does nothing about it. You sit here and say everything is great, and that is all God. Then when the bad things of this Earth come up, showing your God to be immoral, you charge it to another account. You claim we live in a Fallen world, notions of free will etc. Everything good is God, everything bad he is absolved from. What kind of childish nonsense is this? ANY HUMAN living today could come up with a better system than what this supposedly infinite intelligence came up with.

This experience is what my soul craves. Yeah I still believe god did it all and that she did a good job. It's easy for us to lose faith in things unseen, like god because we don't see the whole picture. I just believe she did a good job. No matter how good the universe is, you can always see it as bad. I see it as good. God did the push to start our existence, knowing we'd be too pussy to do it on our own. I thank her for that. Without the bad times, there aren't good times.

Pure babble. You're talking nonsense about things that you cannot even hope to explain, and could not possibly have knowledge of. You're still using current ignorance as a realm for God. "If I dont get it, that is God." Once again, what the hell are you talking about? Explain to me what a soul is, in something other than bs Religious metaphysical terms.

The soul is what allows me to have this experience. I came from a state of perfect being, that was pure nothingness. I'll always remain in that state of pure perfection. This experience is how it plays out. If my soul craves a god, there will be one. Our souls are infinite and only get better. The immaterial things like love is proof of that.