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why are you an atheist?

Started by randomvim, September 11, 2016, 03:14:56 AM

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Unbeliever

Absence of evidence that should be glaringly obvious is, indeed, evidence of absence.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Cavebear

Always remember that the existence of a deity is the claim of the theists.  It is therefore the burden of the believer to prove the claim.  Atheists do not have to "prove" anything.  WE are not claiming the existence of anything.

If someone claims there are unicorns or Yeti, it is up to them to prove their claim.  And it is the same about any sort of deity.  Someone claims there is one, it is up to them to prove it.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

#377
Quote from: Unbeliever on January 05, 2019, 06:14:25 PM
Absence of evidence that should be glaringly obvious is, indeed, evidence of absence.

Even the genuine letters of Paul, disprove the historical Jesus.

On modern secular religion ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QbTRiiZmPo

Hide behind semantics all you want.  But the Puritans are back ... secular Jihadis.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

GSOgymrat

#378
Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 04, 2019, 02:04:29 PM
3)   Christianity and the Bible don’t make sense to me. Every atheist here knows the contradictions and impossible elements of the Bible. Christians can’t even agree what is literal and what is metaphor. Yet even if I take the most charitable view of Christianity some of the basic tenets seem wrong. If I discovered life, the universe and everything operates the way Christians believe it would be a big disappointment because honestly the story is messed up.

I'm reading Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown and he writes:

Original sin is a profoundly toxic picture; I cannot imagine a more damaging story for a culture to create for itself than the idea that every one of its members is inherently evil. Of course it serves a purpose: as a piece of mythology it encourages us to strive for good and find unison with goodness. But more straightforwardly, it is one of those extraordinary life-denying ideas that can only be dreamt up by religion.

This is an example of what I mean when I say the basic tenets of Christianity seem wrong. I don't just object to the details but to underlying assumptions Christianity makes about humanity. These assumptions are so embedded in Western thinking that many people take them as fact. "Humans are inherently flawed and need to be redeemed" isn't a fact, it's a story that has been told so many times in so many ways that people accept it as truth. Not all of the stories in Christianity are bad but some are poisonous. I'm singling out Christianity because that is the dominate religion where I live but every religion is a story and from my experience none of them get it completely right because there is no one Truth when it comes to human experience.

trdsf

Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 09, 2019, 07:38:10 PM
I'm reading Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown and he writes:

Original sin is a profoundly toxic picture; I cannot imagine a more damaging story for a culture to create for itself than the idea that every one of its members is inherently evil. Of course it serves a purpose: as a piece of mythology it encourages us to strive for good and find unison with goodness. But more straightforwardly, it is one of those extraordinary life-denying ideas that can only be dreamt up by religion.

This is an example of what I mean when I say the basic tenets of Christianity seem wrong. I don't just object to the details but to underlying assumptions Christianity makes about humanity. These assumptions are so embedded in Western thinking that many people take them as fact. "Humans are inherently flawed and need to be redeemed" isn't a fact, it's a story that has been told so many times in so many ways that people accept it as truth. Not all of the stories in Christianity are bad but some are poisonous. I'm singling out Christianity because that is the dominate religion where I live but every religion is a story and from my experience none of them get it completely right because there is no one Truth when it comes to human experience.
That was the part, even when I was at my happiest and most committed as a Roman Catholic, that I could never square in my mind.  There was no way to justify making me guilty for a sin I didn't commit, and no explanation by any priest, even the "cool" ones in the 70s, ever made any sense to me -- and like as not, they would fall back on some version of "Well, it's a mystery" eventually.

And fuck knows Catholicism did its level best to make me feel guilty about everything else I did, short of breathing.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Hydra009

Quote from: trdsf on January 09, 2019, 09:54:40 PMAnd fuck knows Catholicism did its level best to make me feel guilty about everything else I did, short of breathing.
Whoa, breathing?!  Scandalous!  Did you enjoy it?  Did you give into your lust for breathing often?

SGOS

Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 09, 2019, 07:38:10 PM
I'm reading Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown and he writes:

Original sin is a profoundly toxic picture; 
How about the idols of Jesus nailed to a cross with a crown of thorns.  Sometimes they even paint blood running out of his wounds.  At communion, depending on the sect, you actually drink blood, and eat a human body.  Of course it looks like wine and food for your goldfish, but there's even a word describing how it becomes actual blood and human flesh after you eat it; Transubstantiation, and they wouldn't have such big and grand sounding word if it weren't true.

Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 09, 2019, 07:38:10 PM
This is an example of what I mean when I say the basic tenets of Christianity seem wrong. I don't just object to the details but to underlying assumptions Christianity makes about humanity. These assumptions are so embedded in Western thinking that many people take them as fact. "Humans are inherently flawed and need to be redeemed" isn't a fact, it's a story that has been told so many times in so many ways that people accept it as truth.
And the most morose and horrifying details eventually become casually accepted as well as embedded.  I remember being horrified when I understood what crucifixion was as a small child.  But eventually it becomes just an idol plastered on the walls of people's homes or special places in churches.  Western society doesn't even think of their church as embedded in and founded on the repugnance of human atrocity.  Instead of reacting to it as one would to a Saw film, it becomes happy and uplifting, and it creates inconsistent dichotomies.  Fake drown a terrorist by waterboarding him, and people get up in arms by the inhumanity of it all.  But a guy nailed to a cross and rotting to death is celebrated once a year.

Such celebrations, along with a holy book glorifying the slaughter of enemies, are the foundations of Western Christianity.  And if that wasn't bad enough, it's even worse in Islam, where cutting off a guy's head on Utube is considered a holy act.

Why am I an atheist?  Is it because of the disgusting repugnance of religious beliefs?  No, actually because there is no evidence that any of it is even real.

SGOS

The movie Quo Vadis was released in 1951.  I would have been eight years old.  It was a big hit, or at least I was told in my family, and my parents took me to see it.  We also talked my Baptist grandmother into seeing it, which took a lot of convincing, because she believed going to see a movie was a serious sin.  In the movie, Christians were fed to the lions, and one scene showed Cesar with his entourage surveying the aftermath of the carnage.  As he walked from one ripped apart body to the next, he was disappointed and dismayed that all of them were still smiling in death.  At one stop he was delighted that one was not smiling because the head was missing.  Then there was the obligatory sequence where the Roman guards were whipping Jesus as he bore the cross to his execution.  Previously, they placed a crown of thorns on his head which cause him to bleed, and they taunted him saying that the king of the Jews needed a crown to be a real king.

On the way home, my father asked my grandmother what she thought of the movie.  She hated it because she said, "The movie was making fun of Jesus," and she describe the antics that led up to his death.  My father pointed out that was what really happened to which Grandma replied, "No, they were making fun of him."

My father admitted later that taking Grandma to the movie was probably a mistake, but all I could think was, "How can she not understand the point the film was trying to make?"  Many years later I realized that my grandmother, as loving a person as she was, was probably of very low intelligence, or at best she had intellectual blind spots put their by her crazy belief system.  This did not help me believe that religion had something to offer, but more about how it preyed on the intellectual weaknesses of its followers.

GSOgymrat

Quote from: trdsf on January 09, 2019, 09:54:40 PM
And fuck knows Catholicism did its level best to make me feel guilty about everything else I did, short of breathing.

My husband is Catholic and he is prone to feelings of guilt of a depth that I have never experienced. He once confessed in a moment of intimacy that when he is very happy he feels guilt because he believes he shouldn't feel such happiness when there is so much suffering in the world and that deep down he believes he doesn't deserve it. I responded by saying, "That is the most fucked up thing you have ever told me and you really need to work on that," which sounds unsympathetic but he knows such unfiltered honesty is my way of being intimate.

Baruch

#384
Quote from: SGOS on January 10, 2019, 07:18:28 AM
The movie Quo Vadis was released in 1951.  I would have been eight years old.  It was a big hit, or at least I was told in my family, and my parents took me to see it.  We also talked my Baptist grandmother into seeing it, which took a lot of convincing, because she believed going to see a movie was a serious sin.  In the movie, Christians were fed to the lions, and one scene showed Cesar with his entourage surveying the aftermath of the carnage.  As he walked from one ripped apart body to the next, he was disappointed and dismayed that all of them were still smiling in death.  At one stop he was delighted that one was not smiling because the head was missing.  Then there was the obligatory sequence where the Roman guards were whipping Jesus as he bore the cross to his execution.  Previously, they placed a crown of thorns on his head which cause him to bleed, and they taunted him saying that the king of the Jews needed a crown to be a real king.

On the way home, my father asked my grandmother what she thought of the movie.  She hated it because she said, "The movie was making fun of Jesus," and she describe the antics that led up to his death.  My father pointed out that was what really happened to which Grandma replied, "No, they were making fun of him."

My father admitted later that taking Grandma to the movie was probably a mistake, but all I could think was, "How can she not understand the point the film was trying to make?"  Many years later I realized that my grandmother, as loving a person as she was, was probably of very low intelligence, or at best she had intellectual blind spots put their by her crazy belief system.  This did not help me believe that religion had something to offer, but more about how it preyed on the intellectual weaknesses of its followers.

Quo Vadis, the book, was written in the late 19th century by a retired US Civil War general.  The emotion of it should have been appealing to a person of her generation?

Also guilt is a Jewish thing.  The original Romans felt no guilt (hence gladiators).  So developing guilt was a great advance away from mindless brutality.

And yes, crucifixion of people was very real.  But strange for Roman Gentiles to celebrate it?  Not really, given where Gentile converts were coming from.

In ancient paganism, the mocking of a "fool" as king was standard Spring Solstice practice.  Also the human sacrifice of a youthful king (in a matriarchy) is very old.  The Gospels are as much pagan as Jewish.  Mock Jewish in fact.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 10, 2019, 07:25:30 AM
"That is the most fucked up thing you have ever told me and you really need to work on that,"
I'm ashamed that this made me laugh.  I guess I really need to work on that.  Oh wait.  I'm not ashamed.  I actually thought it was funny, more so that you seem to be trusting enough with each other to be honest.

Mr.Obvious

I sometimes feel like I should feel more guilt over being happy and well off, with so much misery in the world.
But truth be told, I can't muster more than apathy regarding that, 99% of the time.
I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not a good person. I don't concider myself one. I can't.
But I also realize that if 'Joe', a poor guy, had been born in my place and I in his, 'Joe' wouldn't have acted differently than I do now. Most likely.
I got lucky, in the lottery of life. Especially in regard to 90% of the world. But had that  balance of wealth and power been shifted differently, the world would probably still be very recognizeable. People operate the same, all over the world.
And I don't think there are many good people.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Baruch

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on January 10, 2019, 08:58:03 AM
I sometimes feel like I should feel more guilt over being happy and well off, with so much misery in the world.
But truth be told, I can't muster more than apathy regarding that, 99% of the time.
I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not a good person. I don't concider myself one. I can't.
But I also realize that if 'Joe', a poor guy, had been born in my place and I in his, 'Joe' wouldn't have acted differently than I do now. Most likely.
I got lucky, in the lottery of life. Especially in regard to 90% of the world. But had that  balance of wealth and power been shifted differently, the world would probably still be very recognizeable. People operate the same, all over the world.
And I don't think there are many good people.

So you are a cuck then?  Grow some man balls.  Watch some Jordan Peterson.  Your woman should, should appreciate it.

Yes, what is Belgium?  The Spanish Netherlands I think.  That is such a passe issue, when are you going to be jointly absorbed by The Netherlands and France?  When is Luxembourg going to be absorbed by Germany?  Isn't the 30 Years War over by now?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hydra009

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on January 10, 2019, 08:58:03 AM
I sometimes feel like I should feel more guilt over being happy and well off, with so much misery in the world.
Meh, all that does is add another miserable person to the world.

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Baruch on January 10, 2019, 12:53:20 PM
So you are a cuck then?  Grow some man balls.  Watch some Jordan Peterson.  Your woman should, should appreciate it.

Yes, what is Belgium?  The Spanish Netherlands I think.  That is such a passe issue, when are you going to be jointly absorbed by The Netherlands and France?  When is Luxembourg going to be absorbed by Germany?  Isn't the 30 Years War over by now?

I have no earthly way of understanding how what i said could have lead anyone to that response.
How does saying 'i'm evil and i don't care' imply that i need to grow balls?

Not even going to touch THE belgium bit, because you are even more obsessed than i am.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.