Questions for atheists

I think you do have some prejudices you need to sort out on your views on Atheists. I am glad that I am replying to someone who doesn't follow a religion, as I have no problems with people believing in something whether it's a Deity or the belief in magic or even something like Santa (if they want to continue to believe of course), but religions are man-made constructions and the people who follow them are going by someone else s rules and believing in what they are told and to me, that's a horrible way to live.

As for your questions...

1. I am an Atheist because I never bought into the whole concept of a Deity as it was too fantastical for me and I always preferred to live in a more logical and more "real" world, and I always found it depressing to hear teachers and priests telling me things that I should believe in as what they were saying had no basis in this "real" world of mine.

2. I find it interesting that someone who is a "believer" usually always states the being an Atheist is a belief system. Because I don't believe in something doesn't mean I am believing in not believing if that makes sense. As for bashing the religious. I couldn't care what they do or believe in as long they keep themselves to themselves and don't bash Atheism which they very often do, so it would be more self-defense then attack.

3. I never liked the theism vs evolution debate. It is used too often by Atheists in their arguments but who's to say that evolution is the definitive truth. But as far as I'm concerned it's the best we as human-beings have got to explain where we come from as there is scientific evidence to support it. What does religion or theism do for us. It's just a bunch of easy answers and next to no explanation. It can be a good set of "guidelines" on how humans are supposed to live their lives but simple logic and common sense should really eliminate the need for these "guidelines".

4. You're generalizing. Do all Atheists think that this Jesus character is a fabrication? I wouldn't eliminate the possibility that there was such a person, but was he a puppet in a greater scheme in the creation of a new man-made belief system to control humans or was he a brilliant magician able to fool people with his amazing tricks or was he indeed a fabrication. Why the "believer" can say categorically that he existed without question and the bible is completely truthful about his actions is completely foreign to me just like it would for me to say he never existed.

5. And I don't believe in statements to make my arguments and spout the same rubbish over and over again to justify me being an Atheist. I prefer to have a calm logical argument with a believer like yourself where we don't try to bash each other on how we have chosen to live our lives but it is extremely difficult to have any kind of debate with most religious people without them bible bashing quoting passages till the cows come home like it's fact. It's best to just stay away and leave them to their "small world".

1: Being an atheist has nothing to do with whether your mind is open or closed to the possibility of supernatural things. The only qualifier for atheism is that you don't hold the belief that one or more gods exist. Buddhism for example is an atheistic religion as it contains no formal deities in most of it's forms. There are plenty of atheists who believe in an afterlife and plenty who don't.

I personally don't believe in an afterlife. I don't object to the very possibility of there being an afterlife, I just don't have any reason to expect that there is one.

2: The same reason as in any other situation. My beliefs have an impact on the world around me through my actions, as do yours. In areas where there is a large political pull towards one world view over another it isn't that surprising that people who will be treated as second class citizen have some objections. Believe it or not the movement for the seperation between church and state in the U.S. has long been headed by a minister who adamantly believes in God. He however wants government to stay out of religion, whilst most non-christians would prefer that christianity would stay out of government. Just like any other religion or in-group world view.

I'm sure you would react similarly if a borderline majority of the population actively attempted to make their worldview recieve special treatment.

3: The majority of christians and non-christians around the world accept evolution in some form or another. However for large portions of the political issues there is a problem when religion tries to lobby for the content of teaching materials in public schools. I don't think that evolutionary biology is a necessary issue for christians, although it might be for some. It depends on how literal your view of the bible is.

4: Some atheists think Jesus existed, some atheists think he was a wise man who was misunderstood, some atheists think he was delusional, some atheists think he is a creation out of multiple real figures, some atheists think he's entirely fictional. The only thing you by definition don't believe about Jesus as an atheist is that he was a god or a creation of a god since that would contradict the definition of the word atheist.

I personally don't have a strong conviction in any direction. I just don't have any reason to think that the bible is a reliable text, which leaves very few references to Jesus and most of them after the christian religion had already begun to form at which point it is unsurprising that the story is retold. I also don't find any impressive moral insights on the whole, I find much of it rather distasteful. Yes, Jesus' morals too.

5: I don't care more what you believe than anyone else. As long as it is your personal belief then the contents are utterly irrelevant to me. I might find it funny, but you have every right to believe in it. However when it starts impacting on the lives of people who are not consenting adults I do have an issue with it.

Atheists are not a monolithic thing. There is only one qualifier to be an atheists; you don't hold the belief that one or more gods exist. You can believe in flying cheese, afterlives, Sarah Palin's intelligence, most forms of Buddhism, spirituality, magic, ghosts, big-foot, mole people and pretty much anything aside from gods.

because we think

Did you see "Left Behind?"

If you did, why do you feel compelled to ask such idiotic questions at a board wholly devoted to this waste of cinema?

If you did not, I urge you to see it at your first opportunity.

If you have any consciousness, I am sure it will convince you that there is no God.

Did you see "Left Behind?"

If you did, why do you feel compelled to ask such idiotic questions at a board wholly devoted to this waste of cinema?

If you did not, I urge you to see it at your first opportunity.

If you have any consciousness, I am sure it will convince you that there is no God.

1. Why am I an atheist?
Let's imagine, just for 5 minutes, that the Christian religion did not exist. That it happened to be somehow ignored and lost in the 1st century Palestine and never reached Rome. So, you could not be a Christian today. Do you think you would be an atheist then? Of course not. Historical facts would have made another religion prosper in Europe, first, and then in America. Maybe we would be all muslims, maybe we would still believe in the Greek/Roman Gods, maybe we would believe to the Norse Gods, maybe to something completely new. This would be the religion that was taught to you when you were a small kid, and to that religion you would stick all your life.
So, you could be here in this forum today asking people why don't they believe in Odin, Vili and Vé, which are "clearly" the Norse Gods that created the World.
See where I am going? We don't know if there is a God that created Man, but we know that Man has always created his God(s). And Why? Necause we fear death and nothingness and meaninglessness. We human beings really NEED religion, and this is why it is so difficult to believe than one of the hundreds or thousands religions Man created is actually true.
So, many atheists, like me, can't be sure if there is or there is not one (or more) Gods, but we are pretty sure that all existing religions are man-made.

2. Why do some atheists put so much energy into something they don't believe in?
Because religious people don't keep their religion to themselves. They want to convert everybody and they want to dictate the rules for everybody's lives. They want to force everybody to follow the same set of rules, some of them logical (do not kill, do not steal) other just made up (do not drink wine, do not eat pork, do not have sex in the wrong position, or with the wrong person, or at the wrong time, do go to church/mosque/synagogue, do pray an invisible entity, and so on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on...)
Religious people also want to control education, because these doctrines have to be taught at a very young age to really stick in. They even fight science because science has the tendency to reveal this bag of stories for what they are. Religions are a negative factors on human life in so many ways (just read more Hitchens on this), but even if they were a positive factor, they would still be false.

3. Yeah, it's very difficult not to believe in evolution, the evidence is so strong. And yes, a God could have used evolution to create Man. But it's much simpler to take the holy books literally, isn't it? Because when you start to discuss and contextualize and interpret the word of these books, then what can you really believe in? It becomes a matter of philosophy. Most religious people are not happy with that. They want a set of pre-made laws and rules, they don't want to think.

4. A man named Jesus almost certainly lived, it was also mentioned in one or two lines by some Roman historian. He was a jew who was probably only proposing some reforms to Judaism. His subsequent deification was the work of the Paul (of Tharsus), who is the real creator of the Christian religion. You should read more about this. Do you know for example that Paul ideas were against the ideas of James, the brother of Jesus, who was leading the Christian community in Jerusalem? Ultimately Paul's ideas prevailed.

5. Most Christians do believe that God is somewhere looking at the Earth (and at the other billions of planets?) like a Big Brother to judge us after our death and distribute rewards and punishments. Of course not everyone's religious ideas are so banal and simple-minded, but this is the mainstram, isn'it?

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Let me just say that religion is like a penis. As long as you don't go waving it around in public, or force it into someone against their will (especially children!), I have no problem with you having it.

The problem, of course, is it constantly gets stuck where it doesn't belong.

Just my humble opinion, in the form of an analogy.