Any Athiests who now believe in God?

Deism is all right I suppose.

The problem for me is that life is full of suffering that just leads to the question of what ****er delebritly made all of this. It's not comforting to beleive I am being looked over by a monster. It;s still terrifying, but life being the accidental product of none caring mechanisms of the universe is less scary imo.

Maybe I should be a dualist. The idea that there are two god's battling it out, and that we are stuck with the bad god, is more appealing to me and makes much mroe snese when you just look at the reality of life.

Probably why i generally gravitated (no pun intended) towards Physics, where you are studying something that is removed form the misery fo life. Electrons don't suffer.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 123

username2763536

15

Original post by Jheinexx

Well yeah if you’re agnostic. If you believe theres a god then you know that you should be following a religon so theres no consequences. Arent they scared? Idk

This is a stupid argument.Most God's are notoriously jealous and petty.What if you worship the Christian God and anger Zeus? Or How about if you worship Allah and annoy Vishnu? Either way you burn in hell unless out of the thousands of God's you happen to pick the right one.Which according to most believers just so happens to be the one their family brought them up with.What an astonishing Coincidence.

Reply 124

Original post by MiszshorTea786

Not until you answer my question. I ask for the third time, how did evolution begin?

This thread isn't about evolution, go to another thread for that.

Reply 125

Original post by Plantagenet Crown

But once again, that's special pleading. You cannot in one breath say the universe's complexity requires a creator, but the creator's doesn't. You're also making the basic error of conflating the laws within the universe to the creation of the universe itself, where those same laws are not thought to apply.

Well science points to loads of complex phenonmena where no designer is required to create complexity. In fact it is the opposite. All you seem to need is some simple rules and let the system loose and you get all kinds of crazy things. Evolution being the big famouse exmaple. Another being Fractals. I could go on.

Reply 126

Agnosticism is a claim to knowledge over if a god certainly exists or not, to which everyonw should be agnostic. See the Dawkins scale for more.
Atheism is just not believing in gods because there is no evidence.

People need to stop using terms incorrectly as it creates confusion.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 127

Axiomasher

16

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

Well science points to loads of complex phenonmena where no designer is required to create complexity. In fact it is the opposite. All you seem to need is some simple rules and let the system loose and you get all kinds of crazy things. Evolution being the big famouse exmaple. Another being Fractals. I could go on.

All we really need to kick-start evolution is the phenomenon of a molecule that by chemical (or electro-chemical) processes makes a copy of itself. This is, in effect, what all life is, self-replicating molecules (which we refer to as genes in current life forms) that by natural selection build ever more elaborate 'vehicles' to facilitate that replication. We humans are among those vehicles.

Reply 128

RogerOxon

Original post by Bio 7

People need to stop using terms wrong as it creates confusion.

I agree with most of what you said, but, I think that you meant 'incorrectly' :smile:

Reply 129

Original post by RogerOxon

I agree with most of what you said, but, I think that you meant 'incorrectly' :smile:

I shall change it, I wrote it while waiting in the cold for the bus.

Reply 130

RogerOxon

Original post by Bio 7

I shall change it, I wrote it while waiting in the cold for the bus.

Fair enough. I just found it amusing.

Reply 131

Original post by RogerOxon

Fair enough. I just found it amusing.

It did sound bad.

Reply 132

Golden State

13

Original post by Robby2312

This is a stupid argument.Most God's are notoriously jealous and petty.What if you worship the Christian God and anger Zeus? Or How about if you worship Allah and annoy Vishnu? Either way you burn in hell unless out of the thousands of God's you happen to pick the right one.Which according to most believers just so happens to be the one their family brought them up with.What an astonishing Coincidence.

It is more important to belief in something than nothing at all, especially since religion has a big influence on shaping civilization and unlike Atheism has a system of ethics and morality. In fact, much of the success of the UK is down the Judeo-Christian foundation, and the role of religion taking away the power from the Kings (i.e. through the drafting of the Magna Carta). Atheism is good at the individual level, but it is not good at a societal level, especially since it has no moral foundation to begin with.

Moreover, in my opinion it is more rational to worship a false conception of God than to not worship God(s) at all as you still have a higher chance for an infinite gain.

For example, in Pascal's Wager (Blaise Pascal) argues that a rational agent would believe in God rather than disbelieving in God as it is more rational to choose something that would give you a higher chance of an infinite gain, instead of choosing to disbelieve, which if God exists would equal an infinite loss.

Reply 133

username2763536

15

Original post by Golden State

It is more important to belief in something than nothing at all, especially since religion has a big influence on shaping civilization and unlike Atheism has a system of ethics and morality. In fact, much of the success of the UK is down the Judeo-Christian foundation, and the role of religion taking away the power from the Kings (i.e. through the drafting of the Magna Carta). Atheism is good at the individual level, but it is not good at a societal level, especially since it has no moral foundation to begin with.

Moreover, in my opinion it is more rational to worship a false conception of God than to not worship God(s) at all as you still have a higher chance for an infinite gain.

For example, in Pascal's Wager (Blaise Pascal) argues that a rational agent would believe in God rather than disbelieving in God as it is more rational to choose something that would give you a higher chance of an infinite gain, instead of choosing to disbelieve, which if God exists would equal an infinite loss.

Atheists have morality.It comes from millions of years of evolution.All the great apes are social animals and will work together if they need to.The idea that we would all descend into anarchy without religion is baseless.Scandanavia is one of the least religious countries on earth and they don't seem to have succumbed to anarchy yet.In fact it's one of the best places to live.Compare with places that are extremely religious like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan,.Not exactly great places.

It's Christian morality that is largely responsible for child abuse in the Catholic church.If they allowed priests to marry and fulfil a basic human need a lot less child abuse would have gone on.And that stems directly from Catholic teaching.What about how Christians worsened the Aids crisis by teaching that condoms are sinful.Or how about the thousands of gay people driven to suicide by Christian teaching? Don't talk to me about Christian morality.Its not a thing.

As for Pascal wager you still have infinite loss if you choose the wrong God because most God's don't like you worshipping other God's.Not to mention wasting the one life you actually have on something false.

Reply 134

Ninja Squirrel

I was agnostic for many years until I embraced Islam and it's answered a lot of questions I had about the meaning of life and the universe, couldn't be happier.

Reply 135

Original post by Golden State

It is more important to belief in something than nothing at all, especially since religion has a big influence on shaping civilization and unlike Atheism has a system of ethics and morality. In fact, much of the success of the UK is down the Judeo-Christian foundation, and the role of religion taking away the power from the Kings (i.e. through the drafting of the Magna Carta). Atheism is good at the individual level, but it is not good at a societal level, especially since it has no moral foundation to begin with.

Moreover, in my opinion it is more rational to worship a false conception of God than to not worship God(s) at all as you still have a higher chance for an infinite gain.

For example, in Pascal's Wager (Blaise Pascal) argues that a rational agent would believe in God rather than disbelieving in God as it is more rational to choose something that would give you a higher chance of an infinite gain, instead of choosing to disbelieve, which if God exists would equal an infinite loss.

Pascal's wager doesn't work at all. You can't choose to believe in something if you don't find the evidence compelling and any God worth the title would see this, rendering the wager pointless. Also you would probably need to believe in the right God or punishment will still likely be dished out to you. Belief isn't something that can be chosen as it is out of your control if you find something compelling or not.

Reply 136

username2889590

18

Nope. I struggle to understand how people believe in something for which they will never have any proof of existence.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 137

Axiomasher

16

Original post by Golden State

...in my opinion it is more rational to worship a false conception of God than to not worship God(s) at all as you still have a higher chance for an infinite gain...

You're promoting religious belief on the grounds of fear and self-serving calculation, your God must be so proud of you.

Reply 138

Original post by Golden State

It is more important to belief in something than nothing at all, especially since religion has a big influence on shaping civilization and unlike Atheism has a system of ethics and morality. I

Please explain how humanism has no ethics or morality.

Reply 139