I was surprised to see that most of the atheists I meet in the forum think that the problem is to believe in a certain god, or gods, but that's stupid, atheists don't fight against gods, however romantic and brave that sounds, because, as atheists, we know that the gods don't exist, and, if anyone doesn't know it, well, will be anything else, but not atheist.
So, Why do we come to think that the question is that? Because we enter into the game of believers, we come to think that when they tell us that we hate god we have to explain it, and a such simple answer, "It's stupid to hate what doesn't exist... and you're grown up to continue having imaginary friends, Don't you think?", we have turned it into a dissertation about bullshit.
We, atheists, haven't problems with imaginary friends of believers and we don't give a damn if those imaginary friends are good, or bad, we don't give a damn shit. We, atheists, know that the problem is religion. Religions have killed more people than the Spanish flu, the plague, Nazism and Stalinism together, not gods, gods don't exist. So it isn't important that the god of the old testament is a vengeful ruthless bastard, because it doesn't exist, but the religion that uses the image of that god to justify atrocities exist.
I, as an atheist, know why religions use the image of the gods, I know for what religions use the image of the gods, I know how religions take advantage of the credulity of the believers in those divine images to subjugate the human being, their morals, their sex, their daily lives, the structure of their families, the lives, studies, growth, the development of their children minds, including their governments, their laws, human perception of what's right and what's wrong. Religion, all religions aren't a way of life, religion is dictatorship at a global level.
Fairies, goblins, demons, angels, cherubs, Batman, Joker, Darth Vader, gods aren't the problem. The problem is religion, all religions.
And, in my view, the question that should concern us, as atheists, is why human believes he needs religion.
Am I wrong?
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Really good point. It seem unproductive to debate gods, fairies, Santa. Death is the problem. Human beings don't want to accept their limited time her on earth so they waste it thinking about a land with gold and honey.
Heh, yeah I call it "HeavenGreed".
Hahahahha yes, it's a very good definition, yes
Exactly. One of the most recurring questions I've heard from believers when I've been at conferences is "If there's nothing after death, What's the point of life?"
I always answer the same, "We know where our atoms come from, we know where our atoms will end, because of that we know that we are immortal, we have discovered that background radiation is a picture of the Big Bang, we know what the stars are made of and that the number of galaxies is millions of times the number of grains of sand that exist on Earth, and the number of stars and planets capable of harboring life... we can only imagine... there's only one point of life, the point of life is live, no other". Then someone always asks "And after death?", and I always think could explain it better, but I don't know if it's true.
That's where I believe that atheistic forums come in and can be useful, to other atheists and to believers who seek to abandon the burden of religion.
I think.
I agree, in part, with you. Sometimes, the most effective method, however, for whittling away at the power religions hold is to point out the fallacies inherent in that religion's tenets. I've heard a lot of de-conversion stories and of them, with almost no exception, the enlightenment happened when the person realized how inane their god character was.
And do not you think it would be more effective to attack religion and show that it is unnecessary, instead of fostering the thought of "this god is not as good as you think," when we know that gods do not exist, but religions do?
I would like to give an example, if someone who was not a monotheist, Hindu for example, would approach this forum and expose their doubts about their religion, what would we say? Your gods are evil, or we would point out the uselessness of having a religion that forces its believers to go hungry while the cows eat their vegetables and fruits in the streets... I think the second would be more effective.
Although I only ask.
Again, I agree in part. I think doing both is most effective.
@SBMontero
Excellent, thoughtful post! Thank you.
@mbrownec: Thanks to you for reading and commenting.
The combined content of SBMontero's post and CyberLN's post are my position. The core reality is that there is no god, but it is also true that the believer THINKS there is a god and that imaginary being is described in their holy texts and in their individual imaginations. My escape path out of religion seemed to have involved both aspects. The disconnect between the biblical tale and the suffering of the Permian Extinction sparked my indignation at a plan that would cause such suffering for the purpose of bringing humanity into existence 250 million years later, then the scientific confidence that no creator was or is involved in reality moved me to complete and certain atheism. So I think that we're frequently obliged to respond both to the reality of god's non-existence as well as the logical implications of the particular god myth to which a person subscibes.*
*Individual mileage may vary.
Humans need to define truth through their senses for it to be valid.
Validation cannot accept the postulates of faith.
Faith is the realm of imagination.
Theology dwells only in faith.
Theology is the work of imagination.
Theology cannot be validated.
Theology ascribes the creation of validity to a god.
Theology wins the argument.
I respect your opinion a lot, I read to you before I decided to intervene in the forum, but theology is the study of god and only wins if anyone takes for granted that god exists, if there're no people to take it for granted theology cannot win anything. For example, if today someone asks to a theologian for a scientific demonstration of the existence of God, without exception will say "Bosson", tomorrow they will say "graviton", and we're all aware that neither the Bosson nor the graviton in the future are some scientific demonstration of the existence of God.
Faith is a Sumerian invention, thanks to it, Sumerians, Egyptians and Romans took for granted that their kings, pharaohs and emperors were gods... and when Constantine realized that the citizens of the empire no longer sucked the finger turned a religion in guarantee of the divine endorsement to his reign.
Faith is taught, learned, not from the factory, indeed, anti-sects systems of disconnection are based on breaking the faith. It's a form of programming, that's why all religions, without exception, prefer children, the more children better, that way they take advantage of the credulity of children without any problems
P.S.
I've never seen a theologian win a discussion front a philosopher about the existence of god, and in front of a scientist much less.
For the sake of sanity here let's not quibble with theism's and atheism's stances.
Faith cannot be defeated just because it isn't sourced to logic. Logic has nothing to do with faith, never has and never will. Those theists who do attempt to assemble logic as a defense don't quite understand the precepts of faith.
The historicity of the theological story and its timeline to-date does not suffer from the facts. Faith dictates that factual conflicts tearing at the heart of faith are simply misinterpretations of the facts, accurate interpretations also being subordinate to faith (as the final perspective in conflict).
Remember, when science cannot prove a theory as fact, the theory is dismissed. In faith, if the facts don't support the theory, the facts are dismissed. And so it has been with Copernicus giving us ample proof of that historical scenario.
You cannot come here to defend atheism, either. It's simply a personal declaration and nothing more. You have ceased to accept the notions of a faith-based existence and move on. There's nothing to defend because there's nothing left but a renewed well of unanswered questions the atheist has chosen over faith based answers.
Theists cannot fathom the atheist. The anti-theist cannot fathom the theist. Atheism is nowhere in that argument but both theism and anti-theism fail to make that distinction.
So, we have a site with atheism in the title and hardly one represented in evidence. Theists come here thinking hate is inferred by the site title and therefore a battle they must fortify themselves for. But, they can't be further from the truth, which is part of the baggage they must lug around already, and seek to put up a good show. Atheists suffer the presence of uninformed attack and make with the gentle logic theists are easily wounded by. So it goes into perpetuity, silly as that looks.
Some good conversation in here.
I used to be more agnostic, and held a: "religion is silly" but people are welcome to their own delusions, I can avoid them easily enough attitude, each to their own, I understand the comfortable siren song that most major religions represent that people fall sway to, especially if it was indoctrinated in them since they were a little kid.
That all changed for me on the night of November 12th 2016.
As I struggled to comprehend how people could possibly vote for trump unless they were themselves were greedy billionaires. I realized that people are far more easily deluded then I ever realized, even when overwhelming evidence was right in front of them showing to the contrary. I then realized these people have been "trained" in delusion for sometime now. Trained in being told what they want to hear without fact checking, trained all their lives by religion. (It is not my goal to turn this into a political debate, I just wanted to state some personal background.)
Thus started my path down a more militant atheist, as others call it. I started to read theist vs atheist debates, and I started to make more connections on the many problems various religions create. No longer did I think theists were just a bunch of deluded people that could be avoided, they have real impact in my life for the worse; and for many more much more vulnerable people, their lives are even more greatly impacted as well.
Once you start looking the carnage of various religions is all over, today. (And it was far worse in the past, if history is any guide.) You begin to realize most major organized religions need to die off, sooner the better. Some easy examples of carnage via religion are the ones that occur right here in the US.
- The utterly ridiculous, in every way, bathroom bill in North Carolina. The supporters of this bill may hide behind various "I don't want men in the women's bathroom" arguments, but once they layers are peeled back, it is simply a: religious group intolerant of difference, intolerance because of their religious indoctrination. These people are in fact flat out assaulting some of the most vulnerable people in the world: transgenders because their religion teaches them to be intolerant of anyone not like them.
- Another easy example: Those that fight against abortion clinics. Once you peel back the rhetoric and look at it factually, it is not "right to life" versus "freedom of choice", as the religious people want to frame it. It is: "my religion ideals versus science that I want to impose on others." Again this assaults some of the most vulnerable people: young pregnant women that often have very powerful reasons, trying to make quite possibly the most difficult and emotional choice of their lives, these people need compassion and support, instead of being told they are going to go to hell for murdering, (the religious group's unscientific definition of a:) human. And of course the craziness that if they shut down abortion clinics it will only make the problem far worse, as it gets pushed to the underground.
Now not every person that follows religion is a fanatic that wants to impose their belief system on others. In fact, a vast majority or not. Regular sunday church attendance is only a tiny fraction of the people that say they follow a certain religion. The problem is, these people that ascribe to a religion and may be good people are complicit to the atrocities their religions carry out. Westboro baptist church followers are an awful group of people, but they don't have any real power, because they only number in the 100's. Christianity on the other hand, is enormously powerful because they have billions of followers, even if 80+ percent of them do not attend church regularly on Sunday or barely think about god at all.
Thank you for this topic LogicFor TW. Your profile pic is great. I never thought of that:)
My heart goes out to transgenders and what they are enduring now. I can only imagine the struggle to accept and love you true self with gender identification confusion. Who are we to say u have to label yourself. People are still figuring out who they are then they have to fear this kind of hatred from religious leaders. There have been more and people coming out as transgendered and sadly more and more unlawful killings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_transgender_people
People need religion, they need the afterlife. People need their morales to come from god. They fear death if there is no afterlife. They fear what their morales will be like without a god.