religion, oh god... gods!

I'm an atheist. When I actually started to think about religion is when I realized that there are so many religions (and Scientology) that exist. When I began to think about all the beliefs about afterlife, I began to think that people just wanted to believe in something that would reject the thought that after you die, you stop existing. The thought of a "heaven" is tempting, but using the logic that so many religions don't exist made me think about the credible ones. Are they actually credible? That's when I decided to become atheist. I also believe that if science cannot prove something, then it does not exist. All religion is just a theory. Never once has a religion been proven to be fact.

I think there can be 2 different approaches to god.

1) A god with a clear impact on us.
This has been proposed by many religions and would include ideas like creationism.
I think there are dozens of proofs to reject this approach and there to this day no proof that would support this approach.

2) A god without a clear impact.
This has been proposed by many people who logically see why the first aproach is false but cannot accept "the idea that something comes from nothing".
I think that Wittgenstain taught us that these kind of ideas are useless and irrelevant and we have no reason to use them.

There was a bible quote in Caligula

I personally, though I don't subscribe to a certain religion, I try to reason out the need for one. As we all should know every society on this earth has their fare share of gripes, fears, the fear of the unknown and despair. Perhaps as resulted from a reaction to all this or a need for something we call hope, we have naturally created religions to explain the unknown, dispel the fears of the people, calm down the many people of the land, and to discover the source of suffering. That much seems logical and is the part I agree with in religions.

What I don't agree on is when religion is mixed in and used and abused by politics in order to cause a "great movement" or action upon it's peoples. What disgusts me the most is when a group of people use the name of god in order to start up large scale wars for LAND. Here these people are, fighting in vain for the same god as their opponents in order to accomplish the goals set out by their "voice of god". Truly sickening when shephards set out to have their sheep devour other sheep in order to take more pasture for their "superior sheep".

P.S. Hope I believe is a main driving factor for religion, perhaps because it can be experienced by everyone. We all at one point do subconsciously pray to an unknown entity after all while we nervously await results for the sake of hope.

I personaly am an athiest and think that this life is the only one we got. I think gods were created to explain the unexplainable. Execpt now we can explain those things through science

Man, If only there is peace between us all religions then there would be no fighting..

If by "fighting" you meant war, I'm sorry to inform you that there are other causes of war. Scarcity of resources, socioeconomic imbalance, profit margins, ideological disputes, territorial disputes, nationalism, and several others. Faith may cause quite a few problems, and it shouldn't go unnoticed, but to claim that, if fighting amongst religions were to stop, so too would human conflict, you'd unfortunately be mistaken.

Quite similar, if not the exact same as religious disputes, aren't they?

Man, being a selfish animal, has always been at war and no one would argue that religion is the only cause for conflict. However, it is a great cause for it and, even if it is ambiguous whether it caused the conflict, it is certainly evident that it agravates it, maybe even enables it. Every deranged politician knows that if you want your people to do something you either become a god or claim to have god on your side. So, maybe the World wouldn't become perfect the second religion ended but it would greatly improve.

I'll know when I die.
No hurry.
Though rn totally Athiest until some religion actually is convincing

Yes, more or less my sentiments, I just happen to be more similar to Sam Harris than Richard Dawkins. Trust me, assuring men and women that they are given authority from the creator of the universe and they'll be willing to kill and due for you. More blood has been spilt over religion than any other cause, I was simply stating the fact that it isn't the only cause.

Oh, one of these threads. Whelp, time to weigh in...

Long story short; I'm agnostic. I don't believe there is a God, but I do believe it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, given that I'm a limited chemical computer housed in a mortal bag of skin.

Short story long; anyone who claims to know for certain one way or the other is inherently wrong, but not in the way you might think. They're wrong for believing something for certain.

The problem is, a lot of people don't really comprehend what "omnipotence" means. If there were an omnipotent entity, we couldn't possibly understand the slightest fraction of its being. True omnipotence is beyond the universe and its laws as we understand them. This means that trying to apply our puny mortal logic and reasoning (such as the Paradox of the Stone) to a true God is an exercise in futility. We can't comprehend the answer. To believe anything at all about such a being with absolute certainty is complete arrogance.

However, this human limitation works both ways. If a person really believes in god, then what the hell makes them think they can understand Gods opinions on gay marriage or pre-marital sex or abortion? Couldn't a being of such vast and incomprehensible scope change its opinion? Or have multiple conflicting opinions simultaneously? (beyond our logic, if you'll recall) Or have an opinion we couldn't understand? Or maybe not care at all? There's no way we can know anything for certain about such a being, so there's really no point in even trying.

Before someone tries to counter me by mentioning the Bible I'd like to point out that even if it were the word of a perfect God, it was written by the imperfect hands of man, read by the imperfect eyes of man and edited and translated several times by the imperfect minds of man. If there was ever any perfection there, we've long since destroyed it.

Long story short (again); you're imperfect. Cover your ass by always leaving room for doubt.

On that quote, I should direct you to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-kkhNmAsI

I think it explains better than I can and if it doesn't suffice, I am ready to argument it.

On another point, you speak of always leaving room for doubt. That is a good way to think. Skepticism is always a first step towards knowledge. However do you see a point in being skeptical about something that makes absolutely no sense within our Universe or something we can't even begin to comprehend? All you are saying is: «We can't know, if we could know we'd probably not even understand but we should leave room for doubt.» Following that logic, should I also leave doubt for the idea that the Force actually exists and George Lucas is an accidental prophet?

So, the reasons I consider myself an atheist rather than an agnostic are the following:

1. Applying a reasonable assumption of reality (i.e. taking for granted for a second that we aren't brains in a vat) I submit all religion is false in its metaphysical claims
2. Since there are no correct or convincing arguments for the existence of God I choose the side with the unbelievers whilst applying Ricard Dawkins' 7 point scale (1 being sure there is God, 7 being sure there isn't) and occupying the number 6.99999999999999999999999

Also, I really don't see why the Paradox of the Stone is a piece of flawed logic. It simply states that the concept of omnipotence is flawed. If you watched the video, you'll realize that the concept of God is flawed as well. Why leave room for doubt, and I assume you mean some degree of serious room, for something like that?

I have no idea what i belive. im holding out to make a decision, because i dont think i have learned enough about the world

I believe I answered to a similar thread or may be this one?

I believe in both a God, god, Gods, gods, and science of course. I think the human being needs to believe in something, "I believe nothing of the above exists."

We as humans want to answer what made humanity, how are we here, blah blah blah. In the end none of that matters.

Just believe what you want to believe. I am Catholic and believe hell is filled with Demon Lolis and Heaven is filled with big breasted blond angels.

You are playing a cheap semantics game when you cram God and Science together. You can believe in God but you can't believe in Science. You can know and understand Science but it never requires faith or belief. If you have faith, you believe in God but if you have faith, you can't believe in Gravity; you simply know gravity to be true when you see it and are capable of understanding it.

Another fallacy you seem to make there (emphasis on «seem» as I am not sure) is that you claim being an atheist i.e. not believing is in itself a belief. It is not. People make all sorts of claims. You can accept them and believe or reject and... that's it. Christians say Jesus is the savior and they believe it. An atheist doesn't believe that it is not to be believed. His position is simply the default stage. The same can be attributed to everything. If you claim you have a million dollars in your bank account, I'm not gonna believe that I don't believe. I simply won't believe until you show me.

Last, I agree with you there. Humans do want to know. The difference however is that the non believers look to Science, Skepticism and Doubt to resolve those doubts. Then we have geniuses who work on it even when they claim they still have a long way to ago. Whereas religious people say «We can already know everything seeing as it's written in an ancient book».

I'm on and off constantly, but the usual idea I get is that whatever higher being may have made us is not the one in our holy books, as we humans don't have the capacity to comprehend a being like that.

As far as the afterlife, heaven, and hell, I'm taking life as an experiment. I'll be the best person I can be, and when I reach the finish line, I'll compare my life and judgment, if there is any, with other people. No matter where I go, I'll be happy with the knowledge that I've been the best person I could have been.

This is why I don't get people who actively hate and discriminate against LGBT. It's fine if you don't agree with them, but they have rights too. The LGBT people are living their own lives, and those who protest against them won't be affected in the long run. When we all pass on, we'll see who was right and who was wrong and if that even matters anymore.

Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!
I believe I'm the only one here that actually is into this religion only because its hilariously awesome.

Religion, in my opinion has RULES that are TOO STRICT, i don't give a damn if people have religion but there are things that i don't like about some religious people, these are:

• They try to impose their religion on you, the bad way.

• They talk bad about other religions and people in those religions and condemn them

• Logic and reason doesn't work on them

• If you're not with them your against them

I'm an atheist at the moment... some time i had an idea to create a religion...