[Locked] The reason I'm not an athiest.

...now, Im not a religious person by any definition. I get mad at most all of the catholic subbranches, Its getting harder and harder to view Islam impartially, and I just dont agree with all of the views of most every religion. There are contradictions and things that are unfair, and just plain ridiculous.

...but I'm not an atheist. I believe in god, but only for one reason, really. I've heard all of the atheist arguments, and none of them have ever addressed this, so Im curious if any of the many atheists on this site might have an idea.

The reason I'm not an atheist is because it had to start SOMEWHERE.

All of the theories behind man's creation, really...

like, for the big bang. What first created that atom that exploded to create all life? How did that thing just appear?

that's the biggest and only real convincing argument I have for the existence of god. I'd like to hear some people's theories opposing it.

thanks!

Though I'm not an atheist myself, the counter-question would be, "How did God start?"

As you said, there had to have been a beginning.

well, i just wanted to point out that stuff like the big bang theory or evolution are not athiest beliefs. Many of the scientist who think of this stuff are infact religious people. Take albert enstien, he said he wanted to things out because he wanted to know the truths behind gods mysteries. He wasn't just saying that too sound cool, he really was just looking for how the world he thought god created works.

Edit: but yeah what coco-tan said... what exactly are you asking?

I believe there is no god because of George Carlin;s argument, the 'Invisible man in the sky' argument, as well as just plain-ol lack of proof.

Beleive me though, I would love to be able to honestly believe god and heaven existed. But i can;s. I just can't.

I don't remember anyone ever claimed that cosmology is a complete field...so yeah, that's one of the unanswered questions, and to answer them is why we're seeking for the Theory of Everything....

But well, for now, all I can say is just because there are questions you can't answer, putting the word "god" as the default answer is stupid. Science don't advance that way, and so is anything that use logic and reason as the tool to push forward.



And this, is obviously something taken out of context. I think of Einstein as something close to my ideal, so I gotta admit, it's hard to stay calm reading this but...Einstein is in no way a religious man. Well, he do admit he's religious but, by religious he meant something totally different from what the term usually means.

Quotes from the man himself...

"My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the Universe."

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

I suppose these two suffice in conveying what Einstein meant by him being religious...

Finding answers by religion is just as legitiment as finding them through science.

Im not atheist either. Im almost agnostic but I dont fully agree with the def. so Im nothing! But you sound pretty agnostic to me.

You are nothing... you might have just blown my mind man...

Oh my....I just find it amusing anyone actually said this...I hope you're just joking but...in case you're not, may I know you reasons for saying so?

Thanks! You blew mine too when you said religion was just as valid an answer for everything as science!

Geeze... a little condesending dontcha think?... anyways...

Both are, and hear me out, faith based. Indeed, while science is powerful, it isn't unfalable. Even recently, mathmatics has been found to limited, its laws being changed and refined, fitting into the new things we learn and growing along with the growing knowledge humans posses. Because of this, we know that old mathmatics was indeed flawed, an easy example is if you consider that for sometime the concept of zero did not exist (once again, peoples minds were blown;) ) So inorder to use science, as any scientist will tell you, you have to have faith. In both the known, and unknown.

Religion is the same, we do not see a god, but we do see miracles. Their are documentations of people spontanously growning limbs, google William Branham, a man who during the 1950s healed thousands of people, on the spot, recorded even by the FBI as it happened. The unexplainable, yet the fruits of faith present.
So if a man prays, and he is cured of blindness, and another and another researches sciences, and is cured of his blindness is one of them wrong for being cured? They both are cured. Perhaps the man prayed for the other man to find a cure, and perhaps the man who researched had inspiration from the divine. Both men are cured, both found their answer to blindness

So I made this profile and interrupt my hentai gazing since your post caught my attention. So I hope you take the time to actually read this.

Here's the thing. I don't really believe in this as much as I used to, but it's what Einstein and many philosophers before him believed. Pantheism. Their theory is, the universe is a single entity that recycles what it has and recreates. They call this entity, God. In a physical sense it is everything. I'll stay vague here since I'm going to write too much..

Now let me ask you this. In our world, everything is so convenient and man made. Of course it's easy to believe something created us. But who says existence was ever created? Couldn't it always have been there and reuses itself. Just as Earth uses the nutrients of our corpses to feed the new lives. The same thing happens with dead planet and stars. And to remind you. The big bang is just a theory. And just as the physics theories of galaxies have been challenged to the ground, so has the big bang.

Now, that's from what I've learn so far. I'm an Atheist and really think there are too many things that can happen. An afterlife seems silly to me and the idea of a God isn't far fetched. But, if they did exist. They must be bored. What is there to do when you're infinitely powerful and have lived forever? I can't imagine any Human being sane enough to exist that long.

And if you believe in God. What do you think they look like? What makes you think it has a consciousness? What made it create you? Do you think it needs you even though your life can be taken at any time along with anyone of your family members? Do you think it cares? I don't want to get too preachy, but I've gone through a lot of questioning to the point of where I can't imagine there being a God.

Anyways, thanks for getting this far! Hope this helped you!

Yes but where did all this recycling stuff come from? the universe is not a recycling plant...

while i respect your opinion, I can imagine a god creating humans for a relationship, for a reason to the gods existance. That is the belief of a christian anyways, and why would a god put you through this world? why care about you? what does the god look like? well if your a hindu, it looks like an elephant XD
No but I believe a god could exist and have us here for a purpose, that purpose is to prove something, that they love you. If i told my girlfriend i loved her, then she would recipicate it. Why? because i have proven it, with the times i have been there for her, for the words i have said, for the actions I have done, for the promises I made and kept, and for the sacrifices i have made for her. But if I just met her one day and said "you are my girlfriend and I love you and so you should love me too", that is crazy. And so why so a god be any different?

Edit: removed all my exclamtion marks as a way of "disarming" my post, don't want to be pretentious

Dude you are making yourself preachy. Dont bite our heads off for responding..

Oh my bad

I wasn't trying to be, I actually found Soy's post really interesting. This stuff is over everyones head. When it comes to the metaphysical it is best to wish everyone is right. Someway, somehow... everyone is right... even those mormons...

Since nobody knows the answers for certain, i listen to everyone, because the man who thinks our lives are just a version of the Truman Show, gots just as much speaking power as Moses's zombie.

For me all of the arguments that religious people want to use to prove that God exists can either be refutable or cannot be proven, but by the same token I cannot prove that God doesn't exist either. I just choose not to believe because quite frankly I hate the idea that I'm suppose to live up to the standards of anyone, nevertheless someone that I can't even see, hear or speak to.

I simply want to live my life the way I want to, not to be dictated by someone else.

Oh my, sorry if you see it that way...

But, you do understand why the law of maths ans sciences are changing over time, right? It's because we learn something new, we find new areas to be explored, and new limits taken down(or imposed). So, yeah, while in the strictest sense it is faith based, the faith that acts as a base in science is nothing more that the feeling of awe when we see something mysterious, accompanied by raging curiosity to explore and learn more about it. Nothing wrong about that...plus intellect alone cannot inspire us to actually explore new things...

Like Einstein said...

"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.'

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all art and science."

These two quotes are what I think speak best about the 'faith' of scientists, that I while still far from the peak, certainly have felt at least a little of it...

As for faith in religion, it is the same in that it's also based in the mysterious, but with no attempt to learn more about it. Faith in religion promotes people to let the unknown stay unknown, and just gain satisfaction in labeling your lack of knowledge as "god". So how can you say these two faith are that of the same? I don't like to put it this way but, to me it's an insult to even lump these two together. I'm very sure if scientists and the religious share the same faith, instead of searching for lamp we'll just pray for light.

As for miracles, all I can say is that we're still having not enough knowledge as to know the real principles behind why prayers seem to work. Brain is a very complex organ and since prayers in some ways stimulate the brain, I know the answer got to be a complex one, which for now we've been able to find. But I'm very sure that prayer itself is not the answer, because if prayers are indeed able to directly influence the world, certain country would have perished long ago.

And razama, I gotta say your attempt to justify the existence of god using relationship and love is just...corny, at best. Love is too feeble an emotion to even rely to, so using it as a proof for something is really far-fetched...not to mention I see no truth value is brought by any emotion...




Theories of galaxies are challenged? May I take it that it's general relativity(because gravity plays a large part in forming galaxies) that is challenged? If so, may I know your source? Because this is so interesting to me...

As for refuting something just because it's a theory...well, electromagnetism is also just a theory...try living without that.

Your reply really got to me. Not in a bad way, but you sound open minded and I really hope you do finish reading this all while most people may just dismiss it under close minded views. I'm apologizing in advance if I get to the point really fast or offend. I'm really not trying to. I just have an opinion.

First off, depends on your definition in faith. In lovers and family, of course it's nice to have faith giving people the benefit of the doubt in their statements and it's nice to know you won't be back stabbed or cheated on. As for faith in a higher power or GOD. I really don't see a point, you can have faith in one certain Deity. But what if it's the wrong one? What if the Buddhist Nirvana is real? What if you just never die and just reincarnate?

As for your convictions on science, science doesn't claim to know all of the answers. It just has many, without science I wouldn't be alive today. Thanks to modern medicine. Thanks to science we live longer, eat healthier, live cozy lives and all it's ever done is push the human race forward. Science makes mistakes though and it corrects them. If a theory is wrong or unproven, it's taken out of the books or just rarely ever spoken about. As for religion, it may deny a certain chapter in their dogma. But they will continue to use another to counter it. Such as how Hitler was a Jesus-loving man. But since he told people to kill, Catholics later denied him the title of Catholic. What I really made me question faith was the whole 9/11 and Islam faith. These people believe in this God so much and are swayed to murder people in kamikaze-style in order to gain exaltation from their blood craving God. Then you go back in history and see God is behind the inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the Nazi's who believed to be God's chosen people and the Holy wars? I'm being short here, sorry I can't name more off the top of my head. I'm sure I just gave you over 2 million homicides though.

Miracles. Let me tell you about miracles God shows me. Abortion. Murder. Rape. Genocide. Starvation. You know, hes so forgiving to the pedophiles, fornicators and thieves in our churches. Yet he gives no chances to so many children. You bring up some nice little stories. But we can't explain a lot of things we have documented proof of. Such as aliens. But they aren't accepted by science as valid because we don't really have a way to test it. Like if the "cured" bystander weren't putting up an act like they are usually paid for by churches to do. What do miracles prove of a God? Buddha preached of Nirvana and did miracles as well! How does faith present anything? What faith is really sounding like is a placebo or an attitude. Like if I wake up in a bad mood, my day will most likely be gone. I don't think I have to explain what a placebo is, but from what I've learned in psychology class is that they actually work. If you want evidence, I'll find you a link to anything on here.

I'm going backwards in reading what you said since I'm scrolling back up to read. I'm not sure if you read my previous post, but I talk a little about the Scientific method. Once Science disproves something, they throw it in the scrapper. Same can be said about Mathematics. Science isn't about Faith. Faith is having no proof. Science has proof. Thus the difference and why Creationism is taken off the table. You can't prove there is a God because we can't put on a table and open him up. And don't give me the argument "Can you prove there isn't a God?" You can't disprove a negative, that's like me saying I'm a millionaire and you not believing me. It would be illogical for me to say "Well, you can't disprove it!" Of course you want me to have evidence, like pictures of my money or an awesome boat/limousine transformer.

A little side note on faith and miracles. I used to be a praying/God-loving Catholic and what I had always prayed for was the well being of others. And I lived in that ignorant bubble, assuming everything around me was okay since I was. But, I was mistaken. People around the world were still being murdered by the dozen, people are starving to death and people are dying to curable diseases. While I may have been a thankful person, I was still spoiled in the riches of my society. If God is so loving, I guess he always gave me enough peace and joy to test my faith. While he was torturing women, children and fellow men in other less fortunate countries, many ruled by dictators.

I really hope you took the time to read for the time I took of writing it. Yes, it's more or less a rant of what I've experienced/learned in the blur that is my life. But. Thanks. Have a nice day. If you want to continue this conversation, I'd love to keep responding.

@soymilk: oh my...long post there. Although I think we're kinda trying to say the same thing, from different angles...

And to add to your post, a quote by Christopher Hitchens;

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

It really says about how I view religious faith...