Are you an athiest and why?

LouBelle

I'm interested in finding out people's reasons as to why they are athiest.

I have simply through life experience, my research into religions over the years come to that conclusion. Never thought I would come to a day that I did not believe in a god. Believing in a god is like believing in super man, it would be great if he existed but well it's just a fairy tale. Another reason why I dont' personally believe in god, is that I am a human being and I see the chaos around me and I try help where I can, If I as a human can help, why can't god in all his power. I simply do not believe in " his ways are not our ways " ummmm read your bible again - he created us in his image so there should be some of his ways in us (visa versa) so why not step in....." because it's not his time " (sounds so very much like armegeddon is around the corner story to me)

I could go on and on but the above is enough for now.

leavingwt

LouBelle: I'm an agnostic atheist. I'm open to the possibility of God, in the same way that I'm open to the possibility of time travel. The current popular definitions of God and their accompanying sales pitches do not make any sense to me. The essay below, written in 1896, explains it far better than I can. It was written before my grandparents were born, and yet it's relevant today, IMHO.

Why I Am Agnostic by Robert G. Ingersoll

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingag.htm

WTWizard

I believe that Satan is the good guy and Jehovah BAGHEAD is the real villain. Anyone that gets their LIE-ble reading to the 3rd chapter of Genesis, unbiased, would realize that God wanted to control mankind to the point of tyrannizing them and preventing us from realizing any potential. Not knowing good and evil would then allow Jehovah to enslave us all. Satan blabbed the secret and got mankind out from under Jehovah's rubbish--but Jehovah, with his snotty attitude, ruined it for us all.

And so did the Jewish race--that is, the ones that put this rubbish in the LIE-ble with the view of enslaving all the Gentiles. They even exterminated the ones among them that weren't scum, ensuring that only the scum would survive (Achan comes to mind here). By the time we get to Jesus, who was the last Jew that I have even the slightest respect for (for turning apostate against Jehovah), all the Jews that were not scum had been slaughtered, resulting in a purebred race of pure scum (and that assumes Jesus wasn't a fictitious character, and that is being generous).

As for Jehovah's angels, they are all scum. Those filthy angels have nothing better to do than bug people into religions that hold them back, scamming people out of spiritually alive paradigms gradually into Christi-SCAM-ity, and coercing and forcing people into such religions and keeping them there. None of them look out for us--they only look out for Jehovah. The demons, on the other hand, do try and look out after us--and help us to the extent that we allow them to and they are able. Personal experience: I never had anything but rotten luck when I get badgered with those filthy angels or do anything with Christi-SCAM-ity. And those filthy angels will not quit--they just don't know when it's time to call it all off.

cofty

I came to the conclusion that sustaining a belief in god required exactly the same kind of special pleading and mental gymnastics that we used to maintain our belief in the "Truth".

Science removes the necessity of god, the problem of evil makes rational belief impossible.

OnTheWayOut

I am a full-blown atheist. I don't step carefully and say I am agnostic or there could be a god. But I used to be a JW and that was wrong, so I welcome any god to come and show me that I am wrong again. I see "no god" as the most sensible default position.

My journey into atheism really started after I was already posting on JWN. At the start, I thought Christianity might be the way, then even when I dismissed it, I still thought there might be a creator. Before changing over to doubting and questioning, I remember a Dec. 2994 tsunami devastating so many lives, many many many of them were children. That disturbed me. When I was well on the way of dismissing JW's religion, I started to critically examine the Bible. I quickly dismissed it's god- he either did not exist or he wasn't worthy of worship. I found tons of helpful youtubes and books and the thoughts of others.

Other research came from archaeology. Atheism isn't always about not being able to prove a negative. The evidence all around us helps.

Eastern thought was great, but you could take what you liked and leave the temple to fend for itself. You didn't have to believe in Buddha' being able to continue or escape some rebirth cycle.

ldrnomo

Good essay

ziddina

Heck yes I'm an atheist!!

I'm NOT open to the idea of there being a "god", because I've read so much about the EARLIEST deities that humankind - Homo sapien AND Homo erectus - worshipped, from AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS AGO !!!

When one realizes that the human race was worshipping GODDESSES LONG before these Bronze-Age Middle-Eastern 'gods' arose, one then understands that there is NO way that ANY of these most recent 'gods' could POSSIBLY be 'real'...

And EVERYONE'S concept of 'god' has been formed BY THESE SELF-SAME Bronze-Age Middle-Eastern 'gods', from INFANCY. People think they can "see" evidence of this/these 'gods' around them, but if they'd lived TWENTY to TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS AGO, they'd be attributing all of that to GODDESSES!!!

GEEEEEEZ!!! How many times do I have to point this out before somebody 'GETS' IT??

Theists/deists beliefs in a "gawd", comes from this recent fantasy of superstitious,

ignorant, backwards Bronze-Age Middle-Eastern nomadic males...

"he" DOESN'T EXIST!!!

[And I'll bet my bottom dollar that the ol' cognitive dissonance kicks in AGAIN, and people blow right by all of this information yet again... ]

Selective cognitive dissonance is not limited just to active Jehovah's Witnesses... It afflicts a much greater portion of humanity than that, including ex-Jehovah's Witnesses.

The lack of education regarding the earliest forms of worship is a MAJOR factor in the perpetuation of such cognitive dissonance, too.

Or, as the late, great George Carlin used to say...

"I get so pissed, GAWDDAMMIT!"

NewChapter

I am an atheist because I don't believe there is any evidence for a god. I don't identify as an agnostic/atheist, but of course, if evidence is ever offered, I will consider it. I just don't expect that to ever happen. So I live an evidence based life---as much as possible anyway---humans can't always be rational.

The first step for me was dubunking the flood, which debunked the bible for me. That opened up the possiblity of evolution to me, and I studied it deeply, and WOW---as hard as it was to grasp some of the concepts, it was so much easier on my brain that trying to maintain belief.

But the bible is only one version of a god, or gods out there. I also studied cultural anthropoloy and looked at other religions past and present. There were a lot! But I believe they too have all be debunked.

So if this god were to exist, why so silent? People are floundering here in there search. I believe it is because there is no one to find.

And lastly, I get quite uncomfortable when speaking to even reasonable believers at the hoops they must jump through to maintain their belief. What about evil? Well, for a greater good---or to teach us something. Then why prayer? Because prayer works. But how often to you get what you pray for? Well god knows best how to answer prayers, and I don't have all the facts, so I leave it up to him. He won't steer me wrong. It's foolproof. Absolutely any outcome confirms belief. What?

As my anthro prof said once, magic never fails. Any poor outcome is not the fault of magic, but the fault of someone's heart attitude, or a mistake in ritual---but never the magic itself.

So I was talking to someone that was looking for a woman. He said that he finally prayed about it, and got his answer! She was wonderful, with lots in common, and fun to talk to----------and she turned out to by psycho. But his prayer had been answered!

I just don't have it in me to tie my brain up in pretzels anymore to make some belief work. There is nothing there. Stop trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. Let's stop praying and feed the children.

NC

undercover

Most of the time, I'm an 'apatheist'. It's only on this board that I will occasionally discuss/debate the existence/non-existence of a god. Outside of that, I rarely talk about it, don't argue about it, don't really care about it. I live my life as there is no god. There is no evidence of a supreme being, so until there is, I now avoid superstitious beliefs. But if others feel the need, go right ahead...fine with me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

tec

This is your guys' thread, and I don't want to intrude on any of your reasons for atheism or agnosticsm. Just wanted to comment quick on this:

Let's stop praying and feed the children.

It is neither faith nor prayer that prevents people from feeding the children. A great amount of charity work on feeding children/housing homeless, etc, is faith based.

Peace,

tammy

Are you an athiest and why?

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