Atheists

[kite]

I know we have a couple on here so I wanted to ask a couple of questions. This is in no way my being judgemental, just curious.
1. How did you come to believe this way?
2. What do you believe happens to the soul or "energy" once the host dies?
3. How do you explain the profound events and experiences shared by the truely spiritual such as seemingly miraculous healings, visions, etc...

[Klash]

Re: Atheists

I know we have a couple on here so I wanted to ask a couple of questions. This is in no way my being judgemental, just curious.
1. How did you come to believe this way?
2. What do you believe happens to the soul or "energy" once the host dies?
3. How do you explain the profound events and experiences shared by the truely spiritual such as seemingly miraculous healings, visions, etc...

1. I was raised with faith but I was too intellectually honest with myself to maintain it. Once my mind started rejecting certain concepts of: faith, the supernatural and the superiority of men that lived 2000 years ago, I tried to maintain a faith to protect the idea of my eternal soul but then I realized if god is omnipotent, he knows I doubt him and Jesus and I'm going to hell anyway. Then it hit me - god would send me to hell, because I'm rational and don't trust men who claim they talk to god. After that insight, I was fine with being in opposition to this god and felt free to follow rational thought, which at that time was not atheism. My faith slowly faded from religious, to spiritual, to deism, to agnostic and finally atheism.

I was persistent at seeking the truth and I didn't decide to abandon reason simply because the conclusion of atheism didn't offer me the comfortable delusions of mysticism.

The shift in perception was difficult at first, simply because the idea of an afterlife is very attractive to me but like I said, I can't believe in a lie just because it's attractive.

I do not believe in "nothing", those who submit to faith do and they give it a name. I believe immaterial is immaterial.

2. I believe when a human dies, he takes his consciousness with him. This is not what I would have preferred to believe but it is where reason has taken me.

3.I think truly miraculous events don't happen. If what appears to be a miracle happens, there is a logical explanation.

[mick-G]

Re: Atheists

I can't believe in a lie just because it's attractive.

I do not believe in "nothing", those who submit to faith do and they give it a name. I believe immaterial is immaterial.

2. I believe when a human dies, he takes his consciousness with him. This is not what I would have preferred to believe but it is where reason has taken me.

I tend to go along with some of the things you are saying, but what is the "Lie"?, and do you discount then everything that is written in the Bible? What do you believe happens then, if a person takes his "consciousness" with him? I also don't think that you should discount ppls beliefs in faith as "nothing" just because you believe in atheism. If you are relating souls to consciousness, then you are sadly misinformed. Prob i see in atheism is that you are taking your own reason to justify and misinterpet. God does not send ppl to hell, or condem for rationalizing. He condems for believing in him and then going against him and his plan. God gave ppl reason, and for that to accept him. If we accept him then we can overcome all reason and get to a higer level of faith in God. Denomination is just a belief in ones religion that pretains to their particular faith. It is a place in which they can worship God. God says it is good for ppl of faith to come together as a family and worship together as it brings us closer to him, it is not something that "has "to be done to believe and to repent your sins.

[Klash]

Re: Atheists

I tend to go along with some of the things you are saying, but what is the "Lie"?, and do you discount then everything that is written in the Bible? What do you believe happens then, if a person takes his "consciousness" with him? I also don't think that you should discount ppls beliefs in faith as "nothing" just because you believe in atheism. If you are relating souls to consciousness, then you are sadly misinformed. Prob i see in atheism is that you are taking your own reason to justify and misinterpet. God does not send ppl to hell, or condem for rationalizing. He condems for believing in him and then going against him and his plan. God gave ppl reason, and for that to accept him. If we accept him then we can overcome all reason and get to a higer level of faith in God. Denomination is just a belief in ones religion that pretains to their particular faith. It is a place in which they can worship God. God says it is good for ppl of faith to come together as a family and worship together as it brings us closer to him, it is not something that "has "to be done to believe and to repent your sins.

What is the lie? The supernatural, the revelation of god, Jesus, the church, faith, the Bible, etc. I do not discount everything that is in the Bible - the geography, politics and societal issues, I believe, are all in line with that time. The generalities of the world that the characters live in are factual, the specifics of the characters are false. I don't believe the statements that contradict reality.

Let me rephrase that about the consciousness. When the body dies, the mind dies with it, along with consciousness. I believe the soul of a man are the products of his mental traits - character (who he is) and integrity (the strength to be who he is).

I don't see what I am misinterpreting. The Bible does not even meet the criteria for todays journalistic standards. We do not go to the followers of a specific cult to get the facts about their leader and if we did and they told us he is the physical manifestation of god, we would label them as unreliable with no credibility and maybe make fun of them. Yet that is what the New Testament is, a compilation of writings by Jesus' followers. I do believe the writings (hypothetical) of the followers of David Koresh would present that Koresh was god.

Man cannot live without reason, he cannot deny it fully or he would die. Man can live without faith, most just fear not to.

[kite]

Re: Atheists

This is really interesting. So you believe that intellectual honesty and faith in a supreme, supernatural being cannot exist together?
Also, something that I'm just not understanding is this: aren't we comprised of energy, I mean our brain and heart work on electric impulses, so what happens to that energy when we die in you opinion?

[Klash]

Re: Atheists

This is really interesting. So you believe that intellectual honesty and faith in a supreme, supernatural being cannot exist together?
Also, something that I'm just not understanding is this: aren't we comprised of energy, I mean our brain and heart work on electric impulses, so what happens to that energy when we die in you opinion?

I believe reason and faith cannot exist together, you have to abandon one to use the other. Yeah, sometimes two people can come to the same conclusion but you either come to that conclusion using a logical thought process or you come to that conclusion because of some other reason and justify it with faith, which is what I mean by intellectually honest. You don't believe in god because you have faith - you create your faith because you want to believe in god (for whatever reason - afterlife, omnipotent justice, morality, etc.). Faith is an attempts to justify irrational desires.

As far as our energy goes. Humans are not a source of energy, we require it, from an outside source, if we don't get it, or our bodies fail at assimilating it, our energy fades and we cannot sustain life.

[angryoldman]

Re: Atheists

Damn, y'all are some deep Cats. I'm trying to follow here, but the discussion is way to deep for me. I'm just a small suburbanite from the outskirts of Philly.

[mick-G]

Re: Atheists

Brother you are so lost. It is impossible to try to convey faith/religion and God to you, because you use reason and phychological terms to misinterpet what God's plan is. So who gave to you this reasoning, and sences like sight, sound, touch, smell. I suppose you will have some reason to justify it. Everything supports energy. In fact energy can not survive without it. So where does this energy come from? I hate to say it but someday if you do not change, you will find out the true meaning of God and what it means to not believe. God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. "Believe in me and you will be with me for eternity." We are not here to question God or to try to figure out and blasphamize. Someday i hope something will happen in your life to change your thoughts.

[BIGFOST]

Re: Atheists

I look at it like this. Science is starting to explain what God has done. This really opened my eyes to this. Could the big bang theroy be when God said let there be light? Truth is science has proved many facts in the Bible to be real events. I dont even know if this fits into the conversation

[mick-G]

Re: Atheists

^Yes, it does and i was going to use the Big Bang theory in my last post. It also goes to theory that many atheists use that there is no evidence that there was ever a beginning or an end. Everything was just always here, continuing to evolve and will never end. Big Bang events are not something new, and didn't only happen to the Earth, but many other galaxies that are newly developing. My question would be to what extent do we know that life does not exist somewhere else...That is another topic altogether, lol!

[Klash]

Re: Atheists

Brother you are so lost. It is impossible to try to convey faith/religion and God to you, because you use reason and phychological terms to misinterpet what God's plan is. So who gave to you this reasoning, and sences like sight, sound, touch, smell. I suppose you will have some reason to justify it. Everything supports energy. In fact energy can not survive without it. So where does this energy come from? I hate to say it but someday if you do not change, you will find out the true meaning of God and what it means to not believe. God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. "Believe in me and you will be with me for eternity." We are not here to question God or to try to figure out and blasphamize. Someday i hope something will happen in your life to change your thoughts.

No, I'm not lost and I understand faith very well. I once held a very strong faith as a child and teenager and I would waste countless hours a day reading and praying to god. I went to a private school and learned the Bible better than most. It is ironic that one of the prayer's I repeated every day was "god, I accept whatever the realization of my request brings, let me recognize the truth when I see it" and when I did - he wasn't there. I still held to my end of the bargain though, I accepted it.

Those who submit to faith use human ignorance to maintain their faith. You do not have to have all the answers in existence to recognize there is no evidence supporting the Bible, Koran, god or the supernatural. I do not have to know the intriquicies of my existence to know I exist. I do not have to know how my senses work, to use them. I know I exist, I know how to survive and that is my goal.

Creating supernatural entities only compounds the questions we don't have answers to. Instead of "why do I exist?" We now have "What is god's character?", "Why does god exist", "Why did god create us?" "Can I displease god?" "Will he punish me, if I am bad?". And all these questions lead to a dozen more and a dozen more. Theists create a lot more questions with their answer of god, than atheist do with their answer of "lets just continue existing until we find out".

The wrath of god use to scare me a little but I will have good company in hell. Prostitutes, easy women not to mention lots of prominent scientist and many of the founding fathers.

There is a multiverse theory out there. I think Stephen Hawking writes about it. It is always expanding and contracting, creating new universes and destroying others.

[O2BESOHUGE]

Re: Atheists

I HEARD A SAYING ONCE....

ID RATHER LIVE LIFE LIKE THERE WAS A GOD AND IN THE END FIND OUT THAT THERE WASNT ONE

THAN TO LIVE LIFE WITHOUT A GOD AND THEN IN THE END FIND OUT THAT THERE WAS ONE

OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, BUT YOU GET IT...


EVERYONE HAS TO LIVE AND LET LIVE. AGREE TO DISAGREE.

KLASH I STILL LOVE YOU MY POLITICALLY CHARGED BROTHER!!
O2

[angryoldman]

Re: Atheists

There's actually a gravestone somewhere that reads
"Here lies an athiest. All dressed up, and no place to go."

[pincrusher]

Re: Atheists

i have found this conversation to be quite interesting as i have been labeled as an atheist by my parents since i do not go to church or believe in the suppreme being as they describe GOD.
to me when i used to go to church many years ago, and trust me when i say i used to be able to recite more of and understand more of the bible than just about anyone here or on any other website, what changed me is the sudden realization that 90% of the peopel who attended the various churches i attended, were infact only believers on sunday. they openly abused the preachings of the bible during the week under the belief that if they went to church on sunday and asked for forgiveness then everythign would be ok.
how is this ok? i always thought that when christ walked the earth and forgave sinners, they always changed their ways and followed him faithfully and not just 1 day per week.
to make matters worse, i have had the church used by my wife to commit adultry and have an affair. she would meet the guy at church and go off with him afterwards or just skip the service. this is a woman who attends bible study, is an assistant to the minister on occasion, is extremely active in the church etc. so tell me how she is better off than me when i have never cheated on anyone in my past, just because she believes in god and i do not.
my beliefs are simple, all around the world there are groups of peopel who meet up under various deities names be it god, buddah etc, and they use this to better their own lives and to give them some kind of direction to their lives. this is what is good but i have no problems maintaining a good lifestyle and maintaining my own beliefs in always helping others when you have a chance. i am the kind of person who will give the shirt off their back to someone in need and allow myself to suffer instead. do i need to believe in GOD to be like this? absolutely not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pincrusher]

Re: Atheists

There's actually a gravestone somewhere that reads
"Here lies an athiest. All dressed up, and no place to go."

yeah and it was written by a catholic right after he left bingo and right after he condemned others for not believing the way he does!!!