Should I accept atheism?
I'm hoping I can get a fresh perspective on this from the users here. I was raised in a religious family but always thought myself as more god fearing than god believing. For example, if I was scared of failing an examination or not doing well at a job interview, you could bet your life I would be at the feet of the gods- why risk taking a chance :)
But as a person who studied science and believes in the theory of evolution (they really should get rid of the word theory for this), it becomes tougher and tougher to accept the fact there is a GOD. When different religions profess that their GOD is the ONE and that we were all created by him (HIM is different for different people), it confounds me. With the overwhelming evidence in front of us today, how can we still believe that we were just magically created by someone and dropped on this planet.
I accept the argument that science does not have the answer for how it all started (after all-- there must have been something before the big bang) but then neither do the people who say they were created by some divine person (at least not with any shred of evidence).
I listen to and read articles by Richard Dawkins (The GOD Delusion should be a must read) and Sam Harris and they make excellent points- it is sometimes tough to argue that. I used to convince myself that everyone should have faith but that is different from actually believing in a religion. Religion divides people on a principle which if you think about it has no standing-- no one can say how it started- its just a group of people who believe in the same thing. My favorite meme of religion is a picture of a blind person leading millions of people with a blindfold.
If peoples faith is so strong, shouldn't we try to challenge ourselves to find out the eternal truth rather than hiding behind an illusion? Mind you, I'm still in between- I don't know if i can ever be completely atheist but as I read more and more about the advances science has made over the last two hundred years and busted millions of myths along the way, I wonder if humanity will ever reach a point where everyone will one day accept the fact that maybe there was no creator.
Thoughts?
You should keep searching for what your own personal answer is, be that through religion, or knowledge or how ever you find meaning. Should you accept atheism? I don't know because I don't know you, only you know the answer to that question and it is inside you, the root of which is the very essence of who you are.
Thanks totally agree with you.
Good luck on your quest to understand your true self! It is a life long quest and a difficult one. Cheers friend.
Upvoted
It's a hard question to answer. I'm a very scientific person so I tend to lean to the aetheist side
Thanks
The fact that you strive to understand what is true without attatchment to the answer is one of the biggest differences between you and most believers. I happen to believe that the nature of reality and "god" should be understandable to everyone without the need for assumptions. Much like the way we understand how to bake bread, there are those that know why we bake bread a certain way down to the intricacies of how the dough rises and by how much, and those that just know how to bake bread but not the "why". You my friend, are seeking to understand the truth of the reality youre experience and it seems youve yet to find an answer suitable to your liking.
To be fully athiest is a connundrum i myself struggle with as well, why should we be fully anything though. Knowing the answers to how we got here or why we are here is not what we, as secularists, are trying to grasp. Its attempting to know as few false things and as many true things as possible. Yet, how do we determine what is true? There in lies the rub.
I myself dont claim to know what "happened" and in that, i find peace. Im not claiming to know things i dont, all i need to know is why others believe what they do, and decide if its acceptable or reasonable to believe that. For me it takes a little more than an old contradictory and confusing book, which unfortunately seems to have convinced so many. I often ask christians why they dont believe in other gods, and their reasoning is often compartmentalized, since they werent raised to believe other gods. They themselves truely dont know "why" they believe "what" they believe. Im glad to see youve given you're beliefs a bit more thought to be cautious of unfounded claims more so than hell.
The more civilised we become the more hypocrite.
God will stay with us for ever, if you like it or not.
Even science can't counter this, because everything we know is based on axioms.
You never know for sure...
Yes. Hence faith.
Why does God value that so much?
Because it's where we reach out to Him rather than playing hard to get.
Science has never been able to bust the Bible despite centuries of trying.
There you have eyewitness accounts of the many demonstrations He has made of His power and love.
Please disregard the philosophical arguments about whether you can prove God exists from first principles. You can't.
Please disregard the arguments that various splinter groups about the details. We are human and we will disagree in thousands of ways about what it all means.
But the basics are still the same. There was a person named Jesus Christ who did and said amazing things.
Science can't address that. All we've got is credible eyewitness accounts.
Youre merely just claiming god exists though. Youre also claiming eyewitness accounts are credible and for this you have no proof of credibility other than the bible itself. Youve said yourself god cant be proven, and if thats true id argue that god cant be known. There are many books with many accounts claimed to be true, yet you dont believe them all, why? Why arnt you mormon, or jahovas witness, if all you require is a cleverly written story based on "eye witness accounts"? Id argue youre one person on one path amongst millions on their own, and truely you have no idea nor right to say what everyone should believe. You believe youre bible is accurate for reasons only you know. If you think you have a good reason, explain it. If your reasoning is sound why would someone not agree?
I've explained this many times already in this forum and I invite you to examine my recent posts over the past 14 days or so.
The others you named are not credible for reasons I have stated.
In each case the behavior of the leaders was to make stuff up and change things on the fly to further their own glory, power and wealth. In other words, they were caught fibbing by their contemporaries.
The 66 carefully preserved documents from 44 separate authors over 2000+ years that have been gathered together in one library called the Bible never gained any of that from their testimony and in fact most of them died alone and destitute for failing to recant their accounts.
The Bible is not just one book it is a collection of all relevant documents that exist. So naturally there are no others outside that library since every effort was made to make it a complete collection.
On the other hand, the others you mention do have plenty of evidence of being unreliable.
Finally, the accounts we have did not just appear one day out of nowhere. Each author was known well in his generation and the works were valued and preserved down through the ages. No other historical document comes close to it's pedigree.
I agree that credibility is in the eye of the beholder and am only testifying that I found it credible.
I understand that there is a category of people who won't and a category of people who do.
So are all the other people who are non Christ believers wrong? I don't mean to start a debate on religion but even if I had to believe in a creator- it would be one creator for the whole world-- not one for each religion- so religion for me is something totally made up by man itself - my question was more related to the debate of is there a creator or not?
Thanks for your reply
This is true. There is indeed a secular man-made Oprah Winfrey "religion" that says "there couldn't possibly be only one way"
You are correct to deduce that every religion can't have it's own god. There can be only one true God.
Assuming that is true, then it wouldn't be surprising if he decided that there is only one way to meet his acceptance criteria. (Try getting into a university without meeting their application requirements.)
So, look at every belief system and see where it comes from. If it is a single self-proclaimed prophet, watch out.
It stands to reason that if God had rules he would communicate them to mankind as early in our history as possible and preserve a consistent record of those communications down through history.
See if you can find evidence of that. :o)
Not sure if it's helpful, but here's my own story of Losing Eternity. For me, it came down to what you want your epistemology to be (i.e. your mechanism for having justified belief). Should it be based on eyewitness testimony and personal experience? If so, how should we respond to the demonstrable lack of reliability and the provable ways our minds fail us here? I worked in ministry for 6 years and was definitely a "true believer."
I totally get the struggle. Some points that may help:
The bottom line difference between atheists and Christians when they die:
If the Christian was right, she gets a reward.
If she was wrong, she'll never know.
It the Atheist was wrong, he gets a disaster.
If he was right, he'll never know.
I upvoted and wanted to also share a link to my post. I am not trying to spam your post I promise. It just talks about at a point what your saying. God isn't so fragile he can't hold up to questions?
Hey Science, It's me Religion. Sorry?