Why Atheism?

[SeddyRocky]

Answer could of course be that God is not all loving, but honestly, who'd worship him then...

Edit: Ad in this topic is: Scientology today!

[Artois]

Answer could of course be that God is not all loving, but honestly, who'd worship him then...

Funnily enough, he's not particularly nice, the God fellow in the bible, which is interesting, because, if I did believe in his existance, I wouldn't worship him, but rather despise the vindictive, petty, old blighter.

Its odd that those that do believe in him, rarely admit to his (God's) many failings?

[SeddyRocky]

The Lord's divine ways are beyond our comprehension?

[Dm]

just to the first question, I think being atheist is just a way more simple way of living. Why, you live your life. there's no hand or whatever guiding it. and when you die, you die. you simply, well, stop existing.

Also, to believe that you will die and go to a place where "You eat ice-cream everyday(XD)" needs proof, and saying that we will die and stop existing ALSO needs more proof. So kinda, both sides see the other side without looking at it's own. both sides has it's flaws, so yeah.

[Artois]

... and saying that we will die and stop existing ALSO needs more proof.

Does it?  I see dead rats on the road, and observe that they no longer exist.  All that remains is a rotting carcass.  I see no reason to believe the dead rat has gone to ratty heaven, but rather that death is the end, the rat ceases to exist, and after much prodding, and searching around, I can find no ratty religions promising good rats an eternal salvation in ratty gods company.  How can I find proof of the non-existance of something, if it doesn't exist?

[falconbane]

Atheism is just the other end of the stick of religion.  But at least Atheism is not as contradictory as most other religions since it does not demand its follower to do one thing and then it does another, or claim one thing and when it is something else, or that it attempts to force you to suppress/control/coerce you and your family, or (as far as I know) have been used to killed millions (billions?) of people.

As for agnostics, there are plenty of different subdivisions, such as
- does not believe in a god, but will consider evidence
- does believe in god, but will consider evidence
- does not care if god exists or not
- actively search for proof of the existence of god, or the lack of


And when "you" die, your existence doesn't end (otherwise quantum physics is fail).  You body will be recycled, no?  If you are referring to the "consciousness", then I do believe that's just the end of it.  As for the purpose of life, I would stick with the age old chinese proverb, "continuation".

[Boingo]

Knowledge = 3 conditions
1. Belief (A person must believe X to be said to know X.)
2. Truth (X must be true.)
3. Something something something.

Maybe you mean this one?

A subject S knows that a proposition P  is true if, and only if:

   1. P is true
   2. S believes that P is true, and
   3. S is justified in believing that P is true

Gettier pretty much proved that above thinking is bullcrap. I can think many situations where I can justify my beliefs and same time it's not true. Far from it.

Another problem is basic skepticism: how I can know that I'm not hallucinating? You mentioned that 'know that you know' thing, it's basicly the same what I'm trying to say here. If I think christian solution to this problem we have to think God as being who really want prevent this kind of situation BUT only way to own this solution is believing this kind of being. We have own will, so we can make own solutions and one very used is just stop thinking and do something fancy, fill life with action, humour, you name it: just live without thinking that much. In our basic lives we don't think that kind problems anyway - so what the heck!

Anyway, we should give some respect to each other, even when we have issues in 'understanding sector'

Ugh....I get the impression you didn't actually read my post before quoting it.   

The lines above it said exactly what you have explained here--that there's no agreement that "justification" is sufficient or necessary for knowledge.  That's why I inserted "something something something" since the first 2 parts (belief in X and X being true) are not sufficient by themselves to be considered knowledge.

You could equally use for the third condition "sufficient conditions exist such that S would not believe P is true unless P were true" as a third condition, but that's hardly the point and also far from universally recognized. 

[assassim]

I'll tell you a secret. I'm really an alien from the Gamma Galaxy. You don't believe me? Well, what evidence points towards me not being an alien from the Gamma Galaxy? Prove to me that I'm not an alien from the Gamma Galaxy.

Your country flag says that you're from Finland. Mystery solved!

Yeah sorry just read the first couple posts and decided to solve the puzzle

[Italy2]

I think a big problem with society is that we pushed out our desire for God because we believe that science can give us all the answers.

In a way, this is true, but only for the tangible, things we see with the senses.  However, science is unable to prove the untangible, including God.  The scientific method will NEVER give proof of God's existence.

By saying that science makes our life better is merely scientism and progressivism, two ideology that eventually lead you to nowhere.  Science is not able to explain with 100% the untangible...

The point is that there is really no problem to have sceptisicm or faith.

Overall, the intangible may exist, but in order to know more about it, we need 4 things:

1)  faith
2)  scepticism
3)  knowlegde
4)  reason and logic

[Chemist]

I think a big problem with society is that we pushed out our desire for God because we believe that science can give us all the answers.

In a way, this is true, but only for the tangible, things we see with the senses.  However, science is unable to prove the untangible, including God.  The scientific method will NEVER give proof of God's existence.

By saying that science makes our life better is merely scientism and progressivism, two ideology that eventually lead you to nowhere.  Science is not able to explain with 100% the untangible...

The point is that there is really no problem to have sceptisicm or faith.

Overall, the intangible may exist, but in order to know more about it, we need 4 things:

1)  faith
2)  scepticism
3)  knowlegde
4)  reason and logic

Progress leads you nowhere? That's somewhat nonsensical, don't you think?

Aside from that: science can't 'prove' things for which there is no evidence. These include the tooth fairy, the invisible pink unicorn, alien abductions and, of course, gods. Would anyone mind telling me why I should believe in the toothy fairy? Or Harry Potter? Or God? There is no rational reason to believe in any of the aforementioned.

The inperceptible may exist, but we should not accept it as fact. Not without evidence. That's what skepticism is all about. Faith, on the other hand, is about simply taking someone's (where 'someone' may include youself) word for certain things being facts without evidence.

You may have faith in invisible Leprechuans or whatever, but I feel a lot saner believing only what is supported by evidence.

[iampostal]

because the idea that life is a 1-70 year test sucking up tp a god who must be paranoid that he needs eternal worship to play an eternal bonus game is just silly...life is the gift..i have no problem accepting that this is my life and it will end and life on earth will go on and i intend to enjoy it

[Daytripper]

That's always an interesting question.

First, let me say I do not believe an atheist simply stops existing. You are adding dead matter to yourself all the time by eating. Likewise you lose it. Either way, what you eat becomes life in a way and dead matter is returned to the earth for others to use. We can say I have ''lost'' so much matter in my life and yet this matter never complained one bit. It just seems as if your body is all the time the same, but it isn't. So when you die your last matter is returned to the earth. You will not be conscious but the matter you were made of is still there, probably for eternity or until the end of time.  That is the circle of life or the way of the universe.

You can say, that can't be it. But then what? The alternative you refer to is belief in a God. But then I don't believe that. And you can't believe what you don't believe right? I asked Christians how I am supposed to learn to believe in a God. But then they don't know. I know why. Belief is more or less forced. If you are quite satisfied with the data you were presented you must believe something. Then you cannot possibly stop believing it, unless it was disproven.

So that's all nice and easy. Now... Suppose when you die there IS a God, what is the problem? There's only the problems some religions made. That is, you must act in this or that manner or you must believe something (which is impossible according to my theory) or you might get in trouble for it later. There are so many religions... If there is a God, then does your religion know what God wants? Honestly I don't know what to think if a religion claims that.

Just some ideas.