It's funny how your almost never born atheist, you become atheist. I personally think the whole religion thing is far fetched. Why cant we just be dead after we die? Why does there HAVE to be an afterlife? Dont get me wrong i respect others decisions, I just don't believe in it, who's with me? I'm going to be some grass fertilizer one day And home to some maggots + worms.
I don't "know," but I assume that it's like any other thing. If you introduce something new, it will have an effect. Taking it away takes away all the effects it had. I assume that, if religion were never to existed, there would have been no inquisition, crusades, etc, in the name of god. Whether or not a war over land might have occured in it's place, I do not know. I can only gurantee that it would not have been in the name of a god.
Well, I think there is some basic mistake... religion and belief. Atheism is BELIEF, for sure. It is not passive, it is *actively* stating that "there is nothing up in the skies"; Religions are very specific sets of beliefs. But humanity MUST believe something... Let's say, aliens. (that's just example); Imagine, that people have no religion... BUT they believe that alien races are observing us, abducting people... Instead of witch-hunts they'd be possibly hunting "alien infiltrating agents". (Crap, when I look at it, my metaphor seems even more stupid...) But, I hope you get my point? It is not *religion* responsible for crimes. It is humanity. Atheists *aren't* better people than religious, but *for sure* theists aren't better than disbelievers. Fun fact: from DIFFERENT scientific point, there is EQUALLY the same propability that God exists, doesn't exists, or even Flying Spaghetti Monster created world when intoxicated. Atheism is *the same* guessing as religion, just with skeptical approach.
Atheism is BELIEF, for sure. It is not passive, it is *actively* stating that "there is nothing up in the skies";
If you argument like that, then everything is belief. Atheism is not a belief, I would say a better word is conviction.
But humanity MUST believe something...
Well, actually everything we think to know, is just things we believe to be true. The grass isn't green, but we believe it is because we see it green. A wooden table seems to be made of a lot of matter, although it is mainly more or less free space. We see the world with our senses, and believe it is true.
Long text short point, your statement is futile.
It is not *religion* responsible for crimes. It is humanity.
Gotta agree to a certain degree, but belief in a god is still an important trigger, among others, for wars and hatred.
Atheism is *the same* guessing as religion, just with skeptical approach.
Buddhists are more or less atheists. Are they that much more skeptical than others?
We've never seen a place that has had no religious influence, so it's really quite hard to say.
There are places without religious influence. There is a remote tribe who are atheistic. A missionary tried to convert them. The tribe got some good laughs at the belief. The missionary was deconverted.
I don't know, the whole atheism thing seemed kind of hopeless to me. If there's no God, then what happens when you die? If nothing happens, then what's the point of life if it just ends and there's nothing more? If something does happen, then who made it happen?
As for the answers to your 3 questions (my beliefs, of course):
1) Nothing
2) Just because something doesn't last forever doesn't mean it is pointless.
3) There is no "who", just a "what". Science made it happen. Much of it (at a miniscule level) is random.
This is why I believe that we should make the best of life instead of worrying about what will happen when we die.
A good concept of Atheism is not to avoid the truth, no matter how sad it sounds.
Well you don't know if Atheism is the truth and it makes things sound sadder. where as with Christianity you have the opprotunity of heaven.
1. I'd much rather just die than have to spend all of eternity grovelling before some sky fairy or being tortured (although both heaven and hell in Christianity are pretty similar things really) 2. Why Christianity specifically? If you want to go down that route then why not be a Hindu or a Sikh? Neo-pagan? Pastafarian?
Well, actually everything we think to know, is just things we believe to be true.
You misunderstood me. I didn't mean subjectivity of all things (I'm not sure if this belongs here...) I mean, people having no religion tend to believe as firmly in something different. In logic, in case of most rational atheists. Which leads nice to my other statement... People without religion would commit crimes in name of their OTHER beliefs. "For the good of all; For good of science; For ... (put belief here. Maybe, "For war with alien scums" :P) <- I know aliens example SOUNDS absurd, but nobody yet referred to it... Such thing WOULD be religion? Or not? Because, obviously, it would be BELIEF... MageGrayWolf - your claim about any deities' unexistence is as unverified as any claim about its existence... In my opinion, *passive* act would require lack of action. Yet, many atheists try to prove theists that they are wrong. IMO, agnostic person has *no* belief, since it can't tell (is unsure) about existence - or unexistence - of some deity. Atheist PICKS a side - without any scientific proves of God's unexistence. It is act of faith, altough in negation. I *believe* that there is no God. <- that's basic point of atheism. State it otherwise? Because, "it is unclear if God exists" is agnosticism, and "there is no proof in God's existence" is fallacious... BTW, great vid <Holy crap, I must learn to trim my posts down.. :/ >
Well you don't know if Atheism is the truth and it makes things sound sadder. where as with Christianity you have the opprotunity of heaven.
I assume that "opprotunity" is a new word that means "You get to pretend". You can't just lie to yourself, what does that help? And besides, why wouldn't you choose a religion with a better ideal of heaven? Christian heaven is just kissing up to Yahweh. If you really believed this, why not choose something like the Norse religion, where you get to party and fight all day, or make up your own with your own ideals of a paradise? That would be far better, and you could remove all the negative things like hell with making up your own, while still getting the false hope.
1. It's not like you spend eternity bowing to him. You live in whatever everlasting happiness is.
How do we know God's idea of everlasting happiness is not all of humanity bowing down to him for eternity? The lord (ha ha) knows that it's in the bible enough, worship god, everything is from god, etc.
