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@D
I was born into a christian household. Dad not every Sunday, just occasionally...but belief in a god. Mom the same...although, to this day, I am unsure of her true belief. She followed my father's lead, but never, saying if she truly believed. I was raised to believe, but because of my mother, was never forced to believe. My father did not enforce the rule either, but was directive if requested by us kids. I did believe in cheeseass as a supreme being, son of god, until I started to question things critically. This began to happen as my high-schooling demanded a more precise tool of thought, in pursuit of higher grades and more knowledge. This was the beginning of my awakening. The more I applied critical thought in gaining knowledge, the more I applied critical thought into my life. It took a couple years into my professional career study, to question my belief...and two more, intensively, to realize organized religion, all of it, is not based on truth. The questions I eventually asked myself, was, do I have any objective evidence of a god or cheeseass or any supernatural thing? Is believing in something without evidence, delusional? I came to the conclusion that I had failed miserably at reason, and that I need to grow up and embrace reality, not un-evidenced belief. This is NOT called settling...this is called critically researching my faith to understand truth. There is no truth in faith. There is no truth is unsubstantiated belief. Hence, I do not believe in a god. It seems I came back to truth, after being initially born with it, then led away from it during my youth. I realized child indoctrination was a conscious effort not based in truth...and why I hate organized religion. I realized I do not believe in this lie...hence, why I am an atheist.
Now, seeing teetering on a fence is as indecisive as it gets, I ask you...
Do you have any objective evidence of your god or belief? I didn't think so. Believing in something without evidence, by definition, IS delusional at worst, and irrational, at best.. Do you fail miserably at reason? Maybe you do...but don't take my word for it, that's up to you to find out.
Don't be lazy now...that's the domain of irrational people.
Why did I settle for atheism? Simple... They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I was told, "Join the Dark Side. We have free cookies." And I was like, "Hell yeah! I'd be an idiot to pass up that opportunity." So, naturally, I joined Atheism, and was getting all excited about having access to all those free delicious cookies. However, that was over two years ago, and I have YET to be given a single damn cookie. It's always been one excuse after the other. "Oh, the cookie chef is on vacation." Or, "Cog just ate the last one of today's batch. You should have gotten here sooner." Or, "An unexpected earthquake opened up a giant crack through the kitchen and knocked this week's cookie batter into it."... *frustrated sigh*...
Ya know, I don't want to make any hasty assumptions, but if I didn't know any better I would almost have to say somebody lied to me about the cookies. As if the whole cookie promise is just some sort of deceitful Atheist recruiting ploy. I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Besides, I've hung in here this long, so I have quite a bit invested in my atheism just to give up so soon. Still, if they keep up with the excuses (some of which have been questionable, in my opinion), I am seriously considering filing a complaint with the leader of the Atheist Headquarters. (IF I can ever get the damn address from any of these bozos here who "claim" there is no such thing... *rolling eyes*...)
"Tin-Man's picture
Why did I settle for atheism? Simple... They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I was told, "Join the Dark Side. We have free cookies." "
Somebody promised you treats!?
Nobody ever promised me treats. I settled for Non-theism the way a pebble settles on the ground when a human lets go of it at arm's length. It just happened.
Because Reality happens.
Tom
@Columbus Re: "Nobody ever promised me treats. I settled for Non-theism the way a pebble settles on the ground when a human lets go of it at arm's length. It just happened."
...*skeptical look*... Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. As if I am suppose to believe that. My guess is that YOU are the one who ate all the cookies during that last buffalo stampede that rampaged through the kitchen and left all the cookies scattered and trampled. That's the story I was told, at least. Now I am thinking they just gave all the cookies to you that day as a bribe to mislead me. I'm not TOTALLY stupid, ya know.
@Dworkin
To put it simply I became an atheist as I see no reason to believe in and of 3200 plus religions. None have any proof that a god exists. There's no scientific or physical proof any god exists.
Folks,
A lot of food for thought from the good people here and I'm going to take some time reading the thread over again.
Please rest assured that I am no theist in agnostic's clothing. There will be trolls who like to wind up a forum, but that is not me.
D.
@Dworkin: I have never seen anyone around here be anything but nice to a person asking legitimate sense of curiosity who asks legitimate questions. "Thinking about it" is certainly the thing to do. When you think you have some answers, come on back and try them out.
RE: I'm no "theist in agnostic's clothing." Did you miss the entire section on Atheist vs. Theist vs. Agnostic. Are you really going to hold on to a completely inane concept of yourself?
Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (Have you ever met a living human being who actually knew something about any God that could not be debunked with a simple question or two?) If you find that person, please send them here. We would all love to meet them. It would be great to know what they believe and what evidence they have for that belief.
Just a passing thought,
Things don't just spring into existence from nowhere. Anyone who believes otherwise could show me what he/she has witnessed magically come into existence on earth.
I don't know if magical flying beings exist but do believe the One that created our world is Lord over all magical flying beings and us. And as for the evidence, the best we've hot is the scriptures, which I presume will not be enough for sceptical materialists.
Suppose I were, to take the trouble to lead to people who would open your eyes to realities beyond your wildest dreams, they still could not show you, if you retained your sanity, the Creator. No matter your efforts you will never see the Creator in this world.
@Jackson5: Not sure where you are going with this yet, but have you thought about "In quantum terms, the strong force is carried by a field of virtual particles called gluons, randomly popping into existence and disappearing again. The energy of these vacuum fluctuations has to be included in the total mass of the proton and neutron." That is about as close to nowhere as we can get.
RE: "One that created our world is Lord over all magical flying beings and us."
CREATED? How in the fuck did you come up with that one? Please demonstrate that the world was created by a Lord of anything.
RE: "No matter your efforts you will never see the Creator in this world." And yet you have some magical detection ability that allows you contact with this thing. Please do share! We would love for you to evidence your claim ----- or fuck the shit off!
You're asking me to demonstrate creation? Lol. Why don't you start by telling me how anything can exist without being created? I'll gladly wait.
I don't know anyone who claimed this except religious folks.
Tom
That's an argumentum ad ignorantiam logical fallacy, and you don't get to just assume creation is the only way things can exist, this is an argument from assertion logical fallacy. We get these all the time form theists on here, and it shows a fairly basic lack of understanding of basic reasoning skills.
You are claiming everything was created by a deity, so the burden of proof is entirely yours, atheism is not a contrary claim or belief, it is simply disbelieving your claim, because you demonstrate no evidence for it, objective or otherwise.
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
I do not have to tell you how anything can exist without being created. WE KNOW STUFF IS HERE. You made the assertion that it was created. Demonstrate the assertion. I have not made the claim that stuff exists without being created. I have merely stated the obvious and I think, without returning to the post, offered a few alternatives to creation,.
THE PERSON MAKING THE CLAIM BARES THE BURDEN OF PROOF. Demonstrate your creation hypothesis.
All you have done is make an argument from incredulity. (It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.)
I cannot imagine how F could be true; therefore F must be false.
I cannot imagine how F could be false; therefore F must be true.
I can not imagine a universe that was not created; therefore, it must be created.
I can not imagine a universe from natural causes; therefore, it must have been created from supernatural causes.
YOU HAVE SAID "NOTHING" And I need do nothing at all to point out the utter stupidity of your assertion.
Wow, where to start.
Why are you telling this to an atheist forum? It's theists who believe in magic , like miracles, not atheists.
Well there you go, a theist believing in magic.
Do you think the Harry Potter books are evidence for wizardry? A book cannot be evidence for it's own claims, without objective evidence.
I'm afraid the last paragraph doesn't make any sense. If you can demonstrate some objective evidence for any deity then please do so. If you cannot then how is your belief objectively different from all the other deities that people and cultures imagine are real?
@Jackson5 ...your passing thought stinks (are you sure it didn’t pass from somewhere else?)
“Things don't just spring into existence from nowhere.”
So according to YOU - where did your “magic man” spring from???? Oh right, magic. Where did this magic spring from????? Oh right, “it” was always there....
The “book” you hold so dear was written by men. Plagiarism abounds...
Is this your best offering of “evidence”?
Dang.
Why do religionists keep repeating Kalam Cosmological Argument as though it's new and we non-theist folks haven't "been there, done that" so many times it's boring?
Tom
"Things don't just spring into existence from nowhere."
Including God images. It's quite obvious to me that humans invent them frequently, for various reasons.
"Anyone who believes otherwise could show me what he/she has witnessed magically come into existence on earth."
Anyone who believes that an invisible, somewhat bumbling, sky king with superpowers exists could show me why they believe that.
But, somehow, that never happens.
The reasons given for this lack don't impress me much.
God can't explain this to anybody who doesn't already believe it.
God believes that ignorance is the foundation of free will.
God is unable to get across a simple Message without blinding us with His Holy Awesomeness.
The list is kinda long. Religious folks have been explaining for centuries why they've no evidence for their particular image of god. But, boy are they good at explaining why other people's image of God is obviously false and fictitious.
Tom
Cognostic,
"...come on back and try them out".
Yes, I'm working up a modest thesis, writing in a word processor and then will present for the Viva. Thanks for your patience. There is a point I've wanted to clear up for a long time, but have lost touch with academic colleagues and have nothing to do with churchgoers of any stripe. So, it'll have to be you guys.
D.
Tech point. Can't find a quote button on here? Is it just me?
No, not just you. There is a script you have to learn to use the quote. I never bothered.
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