Debate discussion

What are your thoughts on atheism?

I'm atheist. But I think I'm kinda outnumbered in this group. siiigh

I, too, am atheist. I sorta believe in God, but I don't know. I can't really call myself a Baptist anymore (but I used to be) seeing as I have decided to drop church. I don't know whether to believe in God or heaven at the moment, so I am sort of undecided.

I am Baptised, but I just don't think I am religous enough to call myself a Baptist. If I ever select a religion again, that's what I will be. My dad is athiest while my mom is baptist, so I have been kinda thrust this way and that in a religious battle.

I can't remember the word, but I was once told that I was a person who believed in God, but didn't know what to think about religion as a whole. I just don't really know right now. I guess I am in doubt of God and Heaven, but still believe deep down.

i am christain

I wish we didn't call people who don't believe in God, Atheists. I hate the sound of the word, and it makes ignorant people all shocked because the think you support the devil. I thought I was Atheist(Which did cause some people to be completely shocked like I said before) until I researched different forms of religion,qand I decided that I could sort of form my own beliefs and not HAVE to be some form of religion.
By the way, did you know what atheism's "dictionary" definition is??
Some dictionaries say that it means this:

Atheism: Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god.

I think that Definiton is kind of funny because, to me, when you use the word "denial" to describe something it brings in this picture of someone calling you crazy and you're like "omg i am NOT crazy" and then they tsk-tsk at you and say "Denying it is the first sign of being it". So.. it kind of gives me this picture of some random Atheist being God.

i don't really like the term atheist, either. but i don't know how else to describe what i am.

if it makes sense, i think that god can exist for some people. he just doesn't exist for me. so it's not exactly that i deny god's existence; maybe there's a god. who knows? but for the time being, i have no reason to believe that god exists.

that does make sense, its just that i am one of the people who he exists for :)

Aethism is a very depressing idea. It suggests that there is no God, afterlife, or meaning to anything. I don't belong to any religious sect, but it makes more sense to me to at least THINK that life has meaning, even if it doesn't (if it doesn't, what difference does it make what I think anyway? Ignorance is bliss, right?).

You know how in churches (at least in the catholic one I went to) they say that God is in your heart? I guess I believe that there's someone watching over YOU. Just YOU. And everyone has a different one. Like a guardian angel. But I think that maybe God created the things that made the Big Bang, and helped it all fall into place.

And Kenny, that's sort of sad. My dad used to be catholic, and my mom used to be LDS (I have decided to start using the proper term). But they have always encouraged me to find out about as many religions as I can, and I try my best to. And after I have a very large field of religious knowledge, then I'll choose which one I belong to, or if I don't believe in any.

I guess I have my own sort of religion. Many factors in other religions attribute to it. For example, I don't think people should do drugs. And I combine them all in a way that makes me feel the best I can.
When I thought my parents were going to divorce, praying helped. So I think God is there for the toughest ordeals in your life, but only if you look for him. And he may just be a comfort source.

But, in conclusion, I think that people should do what makes them feel good. If praying makes you feel good, go ahead. If religion makes you feel good, go ahead.
But if it doesn't, if it makes you feel insecure, for whatever reason, okay. Don't use religion. I don't think people should preach to other people on what they can and can not do. I definitely think that people shouldn't hurt themselves or each other, but does that mean we have to go to church every Sunday?

I know, it was just a symbolic thing. Know what I mean?

"Aethism is a very depressing idea. It suggests that there is no God, afterlife, or meaning to anything."

Okay, I strongly disagree with this. I am aethist. I don't believe in God. As for the afterlife ... I don't see any point in worrying about it. I'm alive right now, and I'm enjoying it. When I die, I'll find out if there's an afterlife or not. How come we can't all just focus on LIVING?

And what do you mean that being aethist makes life have no meaning? My life is perfectly happy, and I don't need God to feel that way.

It's like Riley said. If believing in God makes you happy, believe in God. If not believing in God makes you happy, then don't believe in God. So don't tell me my life is depressing. Please; just speak for yourself.

Can't be better safe than sorry. Because, if you believe in any religion, that's kind of like saying you believe in something just to save your butte, basically its lying.

Well the afterlife Idea that you guys (some of you) have really bugs me. If there is no afterlife, I would never get over death. If someone in my family died i would like kill mysel. It would be so sad to think that I would never see them again.

look, i don't know if there's an afterlife or not. i have no idea. i think i'll just have to wait to see what happens when i die. but i can't believe, for sure, that there is one. because what if there isn't?

i don't know. there's really no way to find out. unless you die, of course.

haha ya.

kinda sucks, doesn't it? haha

yup it does . . . I just can't beleive how sad I would be if someone died and there was no afterlife . . .

huh.
But the problem with the philosopher's theory:
How are you sure that it's the right religion?

What someone said about atheism being depressing:
Why can't you be happy? I'm happy that I'm making my own actions and decisions and no one is telling me what to do. I'm living right here, right now, and I'm not going to be pained through life trying to do all these good things or else I'll go to hell. Atheism is actually very optimistic. We don't believe that if you do something bad and don't regret it, you'll go to some horrible place.

but when someone dies it just like sad . . . horrible, really.

Um, yes. Because if your christian, you have to wory about whether or not they'll spend all of eternity happy or sad, but in atheism, you believe that life goes on. Everyone has their time to go, and everyone has to go sometime. or maybe i just believe that cuz my dad works in an er and sees people die all the time.

haha my dad does too!

yes seth. The idea of death is sad. It always has been. but i don't like the idea of going to hell after life if i didn't live the right way. that seems unfair to me.

I don't like close people dying, but everyone is going to die. It's just part of life, we'll all just have to suck it up. I don't like the thought of someone close to me dying, but they lived there life. Now they're dead. Now it starts all over again.

But it would just be so hard if you DIDN'T beleive in some sort of afterlife cuz then you would be like "oh. well i never gunna see them again"

yep. people come and go. it's life.

not according to me :)

yes, that does seem bleak. But don't you think that if more people didn't believe in an afterlife they'd enjoy life more?
It's like those movies where a person gets cancer and they only have 1 month to live. And then they go and do the stuff they've always wanted to do.

Oh, about cancer:
those "you have 1 month to live" things are educated guesses. People think it's such a miracle when the live longer or it's terrible when they don't live as long.

Oh, and it may not sound happy, but just because it's not very happy doesn't mean it's not true.

i know I am just stating wht i beleive.

we're all just stating what we believe. And I don't think anyone will change because of it.

probably true

yup. I'm smart. Deal with it. XD I'm also egoistical but that's off the subject. XD

If I might clear something up...

I said that atheism was a depressing idea. Please understand that I did not mean that atheists are depressing people.

What I meant was that its depressing to acknowledge the idea that one day I will cease to exist entirely, and that the universe exists for no particular reason.

I was not insinuating that atheists do not lead fulfilling or happy lives.

Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood. But I'm still not sure if I agree ... I mean, yeah, it's depressing to think about death, and there being no afterlife. But I'm not even sure if anything happens for a REASON. I don't understand that, why bad things happen to good people, why good things happen to bad people ... I just can't really believe it.

what?

Yes. Yes you do.

You don't go to heaven my being completely immoral. You need to earn it.

well i can't say that i am thiest, i believe that when you die you are reincarnated as a bird or a plant or a rock or someting, i don't think you go to heven or hell, everything that you read in a bible or is hurd by a prest i personaly think is a lie. no offence

Rest assured, I will remember the Goodreads community in my prayers, and isn't it funny to think that when we die, someone could be saying: "I told you so!"

no! leave me out of your flippin prayers! i don't want someone trying to make me go to heaven! i want to party in hell with all the other atheists!
oh, sorry to almost cuss.

Yes it is. There is not George bush! he has accepted god into his life, and as soon as he dies he's going to make heaven hell for everyone!

except george bush... maybe god will tell him there also to start a war! http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pres... http://www.opednews.com/thompson_0804... hell, just look at these http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF...

yes, but he'll be in heaven because he excepted god, and we need to escape him right now, i don't want to have to live near him eternally.

Fine then. God does not exist. At least, in my mind, God does not exist. I might have already said this, but I think that God is a state of mind. If you believe in God, then he exists for you. I don't believe in him; therefore, he does not exist for me.

Again, simple human logic discerns that God exists. I can deny truth, but that doesn't make it a lie. For people who deny the Holocaust, it still exists, they just don't like thinking about it. And fine, they don't have to think about it. Now. But someday, truth will confront them.

How does "simple human logic discern that God exists"? That's kinda opinionated. Just cuz you believe in God and can't imagine life any other way doesn't automatically mean that God is real. To me, science makes more sense. That's like me saying, simple human logic discerns that evolution exists. But I wouldn't say that. Because that's my opinion, and it would be insulting other people's intelligence. It has nothing to do with LOGIC. It has to do with belief. I do not believe in God. Therefore, to me, he does not exist. You can call it denial, but that is a personal opinion, and I think it's wrong.

opinion does not = truth. If the truth is that truth is what you think it is, then it's true that something specific is true, and everything else is false, and yet also true that that first statement is true, which proves that the first philosophy cannot be true, since the second one is true by that first philosophy. It cannot be both, because they contradict each other. it cannot be only the first, because if that were true, then both must be true, and that is an impossibility. Therefore, only the second, which states that there is a truth, and that which is not true by that philosophy is false, can be true.


I just wanted to say that to clarify on the idea of truth subjectivity.

i'm not saying that an opinion is the truth. i'm just saying that i can't prove that evolution is real. you can't prove that god is real. therefore, neither of us is right. so there's no point.