Atheist I have a question about your religion?

Question

Beliefs are the hardest things to change. You believe what I have faith in is fanciful and ludicrous while I think what you believe in is delusional. We can't seem to get along, but what if we could. Most of you believe this world is all there is and that when the body perishes so does the soul. I've seen you guys post (Sadly it's true, that's all there is.) It's morbid isn't it. This world is horrible. It sucks since elitist ingrates are making it suck. As for me, I believe when we die you either go to heaven or hell. My question for you is this. What do you have to lose. I'm sorry but let's not be pretentious about it. If your right when the end comes life is over, but if what I believe in is true you go to hell. You think that's unfair, but we're all sinners so where would you expect to go. I'm saved by the blood of Jesus so of course I'm going to heaven.You may not believe in heaven or hell, but you haven't died so you don't know what's on the other side. I've researched people who've died and come back from the grave and they tell you straight the flu-ck up that they either went to heaven or hell.You have to experience it to fathom it. Some of you are too ostentatious, and you'll chose to stay ambiguous, even write this off as a precocious theory, but would you take a moment to comprehend what would happen if your wrong. One of these religions must be right and the word of the Lord has never been wrong yet. I say God made the materials for the big bang, (because they had to come from somewhere,) and you say "Well who created God." How would I know, I think he's the beginning and the end like the blemish less word of the bible says. I'm posting this not to start a pissing contest, what would be the point. We all go our separate ways and despise ourselves. No that's not the point. You see I just love people. I tell you if I could I would take you to the mall with me and buy everyone an ice cream. I would love to do that, I would love to love my fellow man like that. (That sounded weird, but I'm hetero so it's cool).:> We could lick on that ice cream and listen to some Micheal Jackson: Live Life Off The Wall as we're lick in' on that creamy wet cream. I however suck on my ice cream cones, because I'm incredibly rapacious. Sucky sucky, but anyway I don't want people to suffer when it's so easy to get saved. If heaven and hell do exist after death, you'll be lost to me you know. I'd be on the up and up looking down at you and I'd have to turn away because I know I'd cry just trying to understand what excruciating horrors exist below. You can go on and rant if you want, I'm just sayin' for a means to an end I want to help people.

Answer 1

Pascal's Wager (which you think to be sensible) is an appalling way of misrepresenting Christian faith. The guy who thought atheists ought to just believe in God, as some kind of insurance policy, clearly had no understanding of what it is to have saving faith in God. It is mockery to take a stance of "Oh, well, just in case there is a God, I'll decide to believe". As if believing in God was nothing more than an exercise in probability! No sensible atheist will ever be attracted by Pascal's Wager and, as a Christian myself, I understand why!



Your second point that I'm going to pick up on is "Well who created God?" Yes, that is what atheists ask, but as you didn't know how to deal with that, here is the answer.



This question keeps getting asked on here by atheists. It "is deemed unanswerable because the only possible reply from those who believe in the objective reality of God is 'No one made God.' And if no one made God, then he can't be there, can he? After all, for every effect there must be a cause, and an effect that has no cause must be imaginary.



Once again, in their enthusiasm to prove their point, the proponents of this argument get their shoes on the wrong feet, entangling physics with metaphysics. Cause and effect do indeed reign supreme in the physical realm and the natural world - both science and normal life would be impossible unless they did. But why should they operate in the same manner in a spiritual realm (if such exists)? We have a choice. Firstly, we can assert a priori that there is no such thing as a spiritual realm - that nothing exists that is not physical and open to scientific investigation. On this basis we can proceed to claim, with some logical justification, that every possible effect must have a cause, because that is how the physical world works. But what we cannot do is use this claim to disprove the existence of God on the grounds that he doesn't have a cause. Why not? Because our argument would be completely circular. We begin by assuming that no spiritual realm exists (so goodbye, God) and conclude by 'proving' our initial assumption. Big deal."



"Unanswerable questions are not necessarily clever questions... A question can be unanswerable because it is a nonsense question." [The question] 'How long is a piece of string’ is unanswerable not because there is no such thing as a piece of string, nor because a given piece of string has an indeterminate length. It is a nonsense question because it fails to define which piece of string is being talked about. ‘Who made God?’ is ‘unanswerable’ for the same basic reason – the word ‘God’ is left undefined. What if we define ‘God’ as ‘the uncreated creator of all things’? …Then the nonsense of the question becomes immediately obvious – ‘Who created the uncreated one?’ And if we define God as a lesser being who was created by some other entity – or as Richard Dawkins might insist has evolved from some simpler substance because he is too complex to just exist – we are forced to transfer the nonsense question to this higher entity or simpler substance. And that, of course, would take us back to where we started.”



The way for Christians to deal with this is to reply, 'Show me a piece of string, then I will tell you how long it is. Define this God you ask a question about, and then I will answer your question.' I hope you find this helpful to form future questions aimed at atheists.

Answer 2

Atheists don't have a religion. I don't have a belief (about god or the supernatural) other than the conclusion that such claims have not been adequately proven. I don't see how that's "delusional."



Most atheists don't believe in souls; when we die we cease to exist. I don't think that's "sad," what's sad is the horrible conditions many humans are forced to spend their lives and even settle for it taking comfort in a false belief of a better afterlife.



What do I have to lose? If I'm right then this life is all I have. Spending precious moments involved in a religion is a total waste. That's a lot to lose. A lot of time, money, emotion, effort. All for nothing. You believe in hell, well prove it. As far as I can tell hell is just a story. There is no reason to think that even if a god exists that god would create such a place. You are the one asserting hell exists, prove it. If you cannot then I have no reason to believe you.



You are wrong in asserting that one of the worlds religions must be right. God could exist and ALL religions could still be wrong. As for NDEs, they are just hallucinations. Not everyone sees either heaven or hell, and what is experienced is heavily influenced by culture. There is no evidence that what these people experience is actually true. Nothing has been objectively verified.



You give a poor justification for god. So the materials for the big bang had to come somewhere. So what? Why posit one god? Why not a committee of gods? Why not something else entirely? If god always existed why not the materials that made up the big bang? You can make up any explanation you want but if you think others should believe you, you need to prove your claims.



"Anything believed is through faith."

-- No, that's not true. It's fine to believe in something that has sufficient credible evidence. Faith is the choice to believe in something without enough, or any, evidence and the trust that your choice is correct. Faith is a flawed way to belief. Evidence and rational thought are the best ways to ensure what you believe is actually true.



I don't know that the big bang came from, or even if it came from something (an assumption you make which I reject). But out of that ignorance I cannot see why assert a god or gods. A hypothesis of god predicts the existence of one, something no one has been able to prove. There are so many possibilities about what happens to us when we die, I see no reason to accept the popular hell story over any other. So I just go back to how I was before I was born - nonexistent. At least I'm extrapolating from something I know was true in the past. So, I'm not worried about what if I'm wrong. There is no evidence to really call into question that I might be wrong.



I also tend to think that if god does exist god wouldn't send people to eternal torment. Doing so would be obviously unjust and inconceivably monstrous. If I'm taking any chances, I'm going to gamble that god isn't nearly the horrible being you make god out to be.

Answer 3

Couple of thoughts, cupcake:



Atheists don't have a religion. Atheism is non-belief in any gods...that's it. We have no other common thread - no doctrine, no dogma, no common myths, nothing along those lines. Atheism isn't the equivalent of Christianity or Islam...it's the opposite of theism. Your belief in your god makes you a theist, but you don't say that theism is your religion, do you? Same here...and since that is the 4252251250542545257545744th time I've said that on here, you're already starting out in bad shape.



Your headline is dishonest - you had no questions for us...just a really long rant about how we should believe what you believe...apparently just because you believe it.



Pascal's Wager is hardly new, and it's still easily refuted... and is just bad logic.



You've never "researched" anyone who "came back from the grave" because that has never happened...what you are referring to is probably so-called Near Death Experiences. That those experiences can also be induced chemically and are culturally-specific indicates to me that they are more due to the flood of chemicals in an oxygen-starved brain.



Drop the SAT words, cupcake...you don't use them properly and they look funny with your grammatical and punctuation errors. Just sayin'.



"One of these religions must be right." False. They can't all be right, but they can ALL be wrong.



Apparently, you don't "love" everyone since you made such a big deal about being "hetero" before you went all weird on the ice cream thing.



The sad, sad thing is that you probably think your rant was motivated by kindness...and you will never understand how insulting and offensive it was.





Non-belief in gods isn't a belief and requires no faith...you haven't provided any evidence to support your claim that there's some deviation from perceived reality and that your insubstantial friend actually exists, so we don't believe it. No faith and no belief.

Answer 4

Well, I don't have a religion, so I'm not sure that you're going to get very far.



Actually, most atheists don't believe that such a thing as a "soul" exists in the first place.



I'm sorry you find so little joy or happiness in this life. Yes, there are horrible things in the world, but there are also beautiful things that, for most of us, make life worth living. I hope you find some.



Oh, so this is Pascal's Wager. Okay, here's what's wrong with Pascal's Wager:



1. I can't force a belief. If I see no reason to imagine that your God is anything but the invention of the human imagination, I literally, physically CAN'T just up and start believing in him to hedge my bets. Can you manage the sincere belief that you are a duck? How about that the sky is green with neon pink polka dots? Believe that. Or that your mother is a space alien from the planet Quoz. Can you believe that one?



2. There are plenty of religions, not just Christianity. What if the ancient Egyptians were right, and what I really have to worry about is my soul weighing less than a feather so I don't get eaten by a giant crocodile? Or what if I have to die in glorious battle in order to pass into Valhalla, as the Vikings believed?



3. Isnt your God supposed to be omniscient? So wouldn't he know if I was only pretending to believe in case hell was real? Do yo really think your God is stupid enough that I could put one over on him like that?



So-called "near death experiences" are hallucinations of an oxygen-starved brain. They are not evidence of an afterlife.



It's not the case that "one of these religions must be right" -- they could just as easily all be wrong.



"The word of the Lord has never been wrong yet." Really? Wasn't Christ supposed to return within the lifetimes of his disciples?



...Oh, okay, you're a Poe. Gotcha!



In response to your Additional Details: I don't "believe that God isn't real" -- I simply reject your claim that God IS real. I'm not saying your claim is impossible, but at the moment it has absolutely no power to persuade, so I don't believe it. The idea that God isn't real and there is no life after death is simply the null hypothesis, and claims to the contrary have not been presented with sufficient evidence to accept.

Answer 5

So what happens if all religions on Earth is wrong or of the 100s only one obscure one is correct?



Then you and I BOTH go to hell. Since this is how you think, perhaps you should apply it to your fanciful belief. You have know way of knowing whether your religion is true or not, so by you worshipping the Christian god does no good if it turns out the real God is Allah--you'd be an infidel and would go to hell. So your wager seems pretty bad and is, at best, only slightly better than an atheist's view.





And if you say well there are many religions and so many ways of worshipping the same god--you just have to choose one. That's silly because that basically means the true god doesn't really care too much about the religion. In this case you wouldn't expect him to send atheists to hell if they were good people. So then the argument is out of the window.

Answer 6

This isn't a matter of what we want to believe or disbelieve.

This is a matter of what is reality and what is not.

Just because someone realizes that there isn't this "God" watching over our every little move and making us feel special, doesn't mean that their life isn't fulfilling or joyful.



In fact, some people view it as much more meaningful. I mean, the fact that we are still alive today is, in our perception, a miracle.

We have the ability to give things meaning and purpose. Atheists, like me, just realize that beyond that, there is no objective purpose. Does it make it a little sad and morbid? I suppose, but that is reality.



I like being an atheist, because it means my choices and my actions are genuine.

I am not following any order or rule just to show people that I'm a good person.



If I want to be a kind, polite and respectful person, I do so only because I honestly WANT to, not because I think I get rewarded with heaven.

Answer 7

In all honesty, I would rather hold a belief that allows me to explore and gather thought that a religion that promises salvation. The churches promises are hollow and have only to do with money and corruption. That is what religions are, and what they have always been. I will never believe because I've listened to Christians tales of nonsense since I was in diapers and the more they talk to me the more and more I know not to believe. Thanks for the interesting read though.

Answer 8

I'm one of those atheists who accepts that atheism may be called a religion, in that it is a belief. Neither of us really knows. Watch Monty Pythons' The Meaning of Life sometime. Seriously. It's a hilarious romp through the horrible crimes against humanity perpetrated by religionistas generally and Roman Catholic leaders in particular.





“When someone says to me, 'that's what the Bible says' , my response to them is 'No, that's what the Bible reads' . It is the struggle to understand context, language, culture and custom, that helps us understand the meaning or what it is saying“ –Right Reverend Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh, Ret. Quoted in “Because the Bible Tells Me So”, documentary available on Netflix.

Answer 9

"Beliefs are the hardest thing to change"



Not really. Once upon I time I was of the belief that chocolate was the One True Ice Cream Flavour. Then I realised that title actually belongs to coffee & walnut.

Answer 10

" I only considered it a religion, because you believe that God isn't real and that there isn't life after death. Anything believed is through faith."



In that case I have faith that you're an idiot.

Answer 11

Your beliefs are based on a lot of misinformation....that you believe to be true.



That doesn't mean it IS true...it just means that's what you believe.



You don't HAVE to believe in a god that would send most of humanity to hell to be tortured for all eternity. You CHOOSE to.



We just choose not to.

Answer 12

Lengthy, but a great example of how religion destroys the ability of its victims to think rationally. Well done.

Answer 13

Atheism certainly does not require that much thought.