i am an atheist

[Cyntrox]

On an unrelated note, does the thought of hell existing ever scare you?  I'm in no way trying to scare you into Christianity, not what I'm about, but I often wonder what atheists think about the possible consequences of their actions.  Does an intelligent creator really seem that illogical and that impossible?

I am somewhere between agnostic and atheist, and I am not afraid of death because:
1) Only recently has hell been imagined* as a place of fire and pain, in the original manuscripts hell was only being away from God - and if God is as described in the Bible, I would not want to spend my afterlife with Him. The Old Testament, for example, has several very violent points. And according to the New Testament, Jesus said that he was sent to us to enforce the old laws. So then, if hell is distance from God, I would rather be in Hell than in Heaven. In addition, I don't believe that an almighty God would punish infinitly for finite sin.
2) If the atheist presumtion is correct, there is no suh thing as a soul, and our very consciousness ceases to exist at the point of death, then I will not be there to worry about it.

[Blank Man]

Nope, sorry Kevin Bacon wasn't in foot loose. No, he wasn't you lose. Nope, you're wrong, look it up. Nope no No nO NONONONO NO NO NO NO NO NO HEEYAH HEEYAH HEYAAHHHHHH

[Farley4Fan]

Real funny.   ::)

Sorry, you can't have mature conversations with the big boys.  I apologize for getting so angry in that last post but REAL ignorance sometimes grinds my gears.

[Roberto1223]

i think that heaven and hell were invented only to scare people and make them more controlable.
then the medieval illustration took place and blah blah blah.

[Farley4Fan]

Now you are speaking like that Jehova's Witness (cult) down my street.  "Hell doesn't exist!  God told us it exists to scare us into being good little angels!"  Well damn, that sure worked didn't it?

We'll all know, hopefully not soon.

People are stupid.  Despite the fact that most of us (in the U.S. anyway) believe hell exists in some form, all of us still sin.  I sin.  The beauty of what God has given us (the ability to be forgiven) is that it makes up for human stupidity.  We would all be going to hell if it weren't for this.

I just want you to think about our universe.  Think about the various theories of its origin.  Do they all really make any sense w/o something behind the scenes making it all happen?  Honestly.  The big bang?  On its own?  Seriously?  Hard to grasp, hard to believe, harder to believe that it just happened.  If you seriously think that all there is to our universe is observable data, numbers, etc, take a step back.  Breathe in and out.  Do you really think that you (a bunch of matter) should be alive right now if all there is to our universe's origin is a gigantic explosion?  Hmmm...

[Blank Man]

Just because you can't explain it doesn't mean it's impossible.

People are stupid. 

You're not Neo... You're not the one. You are sitting infront of your computer typing smart ass comments then with a smurk clicking the post button. Everybody has their flaws. Everybody has their beliefs. Stop trying to prove everyone wrong, then ending your post with the word "ignorance".

[Blank Man]

grinds my gears.

Oh my gawd. he said it.

[Farley4Fan]

Just because you can't explain it doesn't mean it's impossible.
Oh, blank man.  You're sooo right.  ;)

People are stupid. 

You're not Neo... You're not the one. You are sitting infront of your computer typing smart ass comments then with a smurk clicking the post button. Everybody has their flaws. Everybody has their beliefs. Stop trying to prove everyone wrong, then ending your post with the word "ignorance".

No shit.  People in general.  People do stupid things.  Me included.  Stop twisting my words, or better yet, get some reading comprehension abilities.

[Blank Man]

sorry... having some trouble interpreting "people are stupid". What does it mean, god?

[Farley4Fan]

I just told you.  People are stupid, people make mistakes, you just freaking took the words right out of my mouth in your last post but you insult me because of your terrible reading comprehension. 

[VaNilla]

Quite right, you do make no sense Skull, if you don't explain something how can you expect people to take it with little more than a grain of salt. Lets take the idea of God, but call him Jelly Beans instead. I'm going to pray to Jelly Beans and Jelly Beans is going to listen to what I have to say. Jelly Beans in Omnipotent and Omnipresent, Jelly Beans created the world. Why does Jelly Beans do this? Well, Jelly Beans works in mysterious ways you see, beyond our understanding of genius.

It's all very fucking silly in my opinion.

You can call God whatever you wish.  Doesn't make him any less real.  It only sounds funny if you give God a funny name, don't be dumb.  What is so illogical about God?  I'm sure you'll find the same problems with the big bang, or whatever else.

Oh, and when science finally runs out of things it can explain, look for me.  I'll be the guy waving the "I told you so!" sign.  Many scientists already know this.  The more they look at things.  The more they see how perfectly imperfect it all is, the more it becomes obvious to them that there is no possible way that it happened by chance.

Just because you can't explain something it doesn't mean there's a God because like I've said before, it all keeps looping back to how it started, and what started that, it's infinite. I'm not being dumb by giving "him" a different name, the only reason it sounds logical to you is because your replacing the words 'Jelly Beans' with 'God'.

Trust me I do find problems with Scientific Theories, who even said I believe in them (I've also said this before too), but that doesn't mean, "So it must be a God...". I'm open to anything but the religion behind God is something I don't believe for better reasons than you do believe in it, which satisfies my needs. I know you've said before it wouldn't be a God if something else started it, and I think you should analyse your point, because it rings very true indeed.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is no logic behind the belief in him, and you can pull the 'God works in mysterious ways' crap as much as you want, but it's a very shit argument because in reality you know sweet fuck all, just like me, which is why I don't resign myself to a belief with no basis.

[Snakebit.]

Reading all this religious thing in here i thought ill add my thoughts about it .

1st of all i would like to say that i am an atheist. Why am i an atheist ? To understand that , you need to understand my way of thinking a bit . I believe in science . Like one famous psychologist said ' We carry the weight of our childhood like a turtle carries it shell on its back ' meaning that we believe and what we were tought to believe. Different people understand similar things in different ways. It depends on different factors.

For example . I am 19 years old and i study law in The University of Tartu . Like probably anyone who studied law they were tought how Law came to be. How did law appear out of nowhere ? Well scientist describe it as this . First there was 'habit' then came 'moral' (Perhaps Moral Code would be a better name for this but i would call it moral further on) then came 'religion and faith' then came 'state and law' . To me religion is just a mechanism which in a given period of time helped to solve their problems , helped to understand the things they couldn't , helped them to solve problems of communicating between each other , helped them to become more organized , helped them to spread their moral to others. This might be a bit hard to understand so ill try to give an example starting from habit .

2 People come to a narrow bridge . They both come from different sides and when they meet at the center of the bridge they come to a moment when they need to decide how 1 of them passes the other . There are really a lot of ways of doing it . 1 of them can go back to the begining so the other one can just pass , also the other person can do so 2 , one can stand near the side and Visa-versa , one can hang from the side and Visa-versa , one can jump over the other one and Visa-versa , or just 2 of them fight to the death but what do you generally do ? It really depends on what you've been tought to do and when this action is repeated a lot of times it becomes a 'habit'.When a lot of this so called ' habits ' come together they create something which we call moral. And then came time for people to become more organized on larger scale thats is why they needed a way to spread their moral to others and thus ' Religion and Faith' appeared. But after some time large territories of same culture and also ( most of the time ) religion became countries or states . But religion doesn't really force you to follow a set of rules . It might name them but it doesn't make sure you follow them , so thus 'law' appeared .(In religion you won't get punished if you kill someone , yes you will go to hell but it will happen after you die , but law makes sure you get punished if it is discovered.[Death penalty or Life Sentance , etc ]) Law like religion in the past helps us to organize our lives to make it less ' chaotic '.

If you look at history it always happened so. First religion came to be in ancient period than the state and law appeared . Even when we wanted uh to ' Civilize or Conquer ' the ancient civilizations of Mayans , Incans etc etc etc . The first one to go in there were 'priest' or 'missionaries' for them to become acquainted to our cultures and 'moral' .

That is why to me 'religion and faith' is like an old mechanism . We have a better one now , so it will probably disappear in time like every thing which is old and in time will became useless . (Some processes take a lot of time like evolution and some are almost instant like an explosion or splitting of an atom )

[Farley4Fan]

Just because you can't explain something it doesn't mean there's a God because like I've said before, it all keeps looping back to how it started, and what started that, it's infinite. I'm not being dumb by giving "him" a different name, the only reason it sounds logical to you is because your replacing the words 'Jelly Beans' with 'God'.

I find it impossible to believe that science will eventually be able to solve everything.  That last statement, ridiculous.  God is the creator of our universe, the being pulling the strings of the universe, whatever.  You're just putting a red rubber ball on his nose to make it sound goofy.  Nice try.

Trust me I do find problems with Scientific Theories, who even said I believe in them (I've also said this before too), but that doesn't mean, "So it must be a God...". I'm open to anything but the religion behind God is something I don't believe for better reasons than you do believe in it, which satisfies my needs. I know you've said before it wouldn't be a God if something else started it, and I think you should analyse your point, because it rings very true indeed.

Don't undertstand your last sentence.  I don't believe I said anything like that.  If I did, please show me and I'll explain. 

The point I'm trying to make is that there is no logic behind the belief in him, and you can pull the 'God works in mysterious ways' crap as much as you want, but it's a very shit argument because in reality you know sweet fuck all, just like me, which is why I don't resign myself to a belief with no basis.

No basis?  There's no basis behind most of the theories of the universe's origin.  And the ones that do have a slight smidgen of possibility are impossible without something behind it.  Science has been wrong in the past, and it will inevitably be wrong again, get your eggs out of just one basket.  The Big Bang (which I know you are impartial to), is widely accepted even by those scientists who believe in God.  That's the most illogical piece o' crap theory I've heard in a long time, by itself anyway.  My point is that science and God are not mutually exclusive.  Get a good mix.  Try to combine theories and facts and look at things in a broad perspective.  Limiting yourself to one view is not a good idea as you'll most likely miss out on about half of the truth.

I do not believe that God rolled up a ball of clay and plopped people on it.  I do not believe that a huge explosion from nothing created the universe or that evolution "just started".  The truth is starting to appear obvious.  Perfection is found in our universe.  The things that would appear imperfect coincide perfectly with the teachings of Christianity.  I don't personally see that as coincedence.  The one God, the Christian God, is THE God.  But hey, if you prefer to worship Buddha or Allah or nothing then that's your choice and I will let that be.  However as a Christian I feel that I have an underlying duty to spread the word of Christ.  The teachings that are perfect and will remain perfect for all of humanity.  Ahead of their time.

[frvge]

The one God, the Christian God, is THE God

So the thousands of other Gods are false? Why is the Flying Spaghetti Monster less than your God? At least the FSM has a good explanation for gravity. And there's beer and hookers in Pastafarian Hell.

Arrogance to claim the truth on something that you absolutely have no proof of. Any disprove or not-so-positive things is being waived away with "god works in mysterious ways". At least science tries to find answers to explain stuff. Faiths just go: "Oh, we dont know, but the [insert book name] is always right, because it's written there. If it's not written there, it's right because either we say so, or because [insert god-name] works in mysterious ways]". Pathetic.

I love how like 1500 car-workers at General Motors (IIRC) lost their jobs, basically making a whole city useless. Then they pray for God's protection and shelter. Noobs, God thought you sucked so he took away your jobs by means of the recession. He made up his mind, now stop whining and find another goddamn job.

[VaNilla]

Don't you fucking listen, I don't have my eggs in one basket at all, I believe what I believe about creation of the universe whether it was mentioned in the bible or by a scientific theory, there's some morality I agree with in the bible, and then there's the majority of it which is clear lies. It appears to be you who has all his eggs in one basket, are you going to tell people who believe in Allah that they're wrong and the Christian god is THE god because the bible says so and it must be true because Science can't prove it? Give me a fuckin break.

I'm putting a rubber ball on his nose to make it sound goofy, quite right. Guess why, because if you apply the same rules to someone else, it makes it sound like silly bullshit (like you have just admitted).

You're just putting a red rubber ball on his (wtf.... - Stone.) nose to make it sound goofy.  Nice try.

Thanks for complimenting my success. If there was something before a God (which there would have to be if it exists) why would it choose to have a god create a universe and create people and perfection? Why not do that itself? Surely it couldn't have happened to just be there? No - obviously not, just like how we can't just be here, it's all a loop and any 'God' whether you believe in it religiously (hell no) or just a Godlike form (possibly, who am I to say, we know nothing) has to have something to make it start, which undermines the theory of a God in the first place.

By the way I can't find where you said that thing about it wouldn't be a God if something else started it, but it's still true isn't it.