Understanding Atheism?

[Gankfest]

I'm agnostic, and I'm having a hard time understanding atheists. From what I've recently read on a couple of internet sites it's possibly the belief in no god or spiritual being whatsoever. It was pretty unclear as it explained atheism has a broad definition. The problem lies that I live in a college town, and there is kids promoting atheism in their Logic and Einstein Tee's on the streets recently. I've had the pleasure of talking to them, and am having a hard time understanding their logic.

From what was explained to me is that atheism is the belief that there is for a fact no god, and the universe was created out of thin air. Now being a physicist the problem isn't the statement other than being related as fact rather than theory or opinion. Personally I see the god argument as what came first the chicken or the egg? Most likely the universe was either created from virtual particles, or something was created from virtual particles and created the universe. Either way, particles somehow manifested out of no where and is what we have today. You don't have to agree with it... It's just my opinion.

Anyway, my point being is it looks pretty retarded when you're wearing a logic and lol Einstein(He was Agnostic btw...) Tee shirt, and telling people that you can prove for a fact there is no god, but can't produce results through experiment. Also they have only a general idea of physics, so I can't really relate on their level. Are these kids wrong, or is that the general belief of atheism?

There is also a couple of christian groups that like to spew their nonsense, and be a complete buzz kill in front of the bars on Friday nights. I'll take 30 minutes out of my day to destroy every argument they deliver from time to time... I just don't want people to think I'm one sided... I'm an @sshole all around! :D   

Good Day!

[Johan]

As a rule, athiests aren't organized and there is no bible or doctrine that they follow. Therefore if you ask ten athiests to define what it means to be athiest, you will end up with ten different answers. Most will tell you that the only thing they are sure of is that they have yet to find any conclusive verifiable evidence that any god or gods exist. But others will tell you that they are 100% sure there is no god. And I'm sure there are others who will tell you something completely different.

[Gankfest]

Figured that, and thank you for the clarification. That's a problem, and is why I can't take atheism seriously...

[Sargon The Grape]

Atheism just means you don't acknowledge a god. Most agnostics are atheists, and most atheists are agnostics.

Whether or not you claim to know that there is or is not a god is an entirely different issue. I fall into that camp, and I can give you my full argument on it if you're interested.

[Mermaid]

Figured that, and thank you for the clarification. That's a problem, and is why I can't take atheism seriously...

Why's that a problem? Is atheism something a person needs to take seriously?

[stromboli]

Atheism is a logical conclusion we came to after examining other choices and seeing them as flawed. Many of us here are former members of religions, including me.

[Johan]

That's a problem, and is why I can't take atheism seriously...

You can't take it seriously? What? Like its funny? Like a clown? So now I amuse you?

If you don't want to take it seriously, then don't take it seriously. Your loss, not mine.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I don't believe there to be a god..end of my argument and don't much care about anyone elses definition. I'm an atheist and nobody can disprove that which is good enough to suit me.

[JCviggen]

I'm agnostic, and I'm having a hard time understanding atheists. From what I've recently read on a couple of internet sites it's possibly the belief in no god or spiritual being whatsoever.

Generally speaking (as in, the most common form of) atheism is the absence of religious belief, not an opposite belief. A theist has religious belief, an atheist does not. Gnostic atheism where one is sure of the position that there is no God could be qualified as a belief, but it's only a belief in the same way that being sure the tooth fairy does not exist is a belief. Proving non-existence of anything is impossible, and I've never met an atheist who claimed such an illogical thing, though clearly some will exist. It's technically possible to be an illogical atheist as much as it's possible to be an illogical scientologist I suppose.

From what was explained to me is that atheism is the belief that there is for a fact no god, and the universe was created out of thin air.

Atheism itself does not stand for any position on how the universe came into existence, other than that there is really no evidence of any kind to credit a god with it.

Perhaps you ran into some idiots who happened to be loudmouth atheists for no other reason than that it's contrarian. Either way this description fits very very few atheists.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Atheism is also 'trendy' now so it's popular to some to say they're atheist, but many people who follow trendy shit will turn on a dime. I expect a good number will claim to be 'saved' and give the same BS 'testimonials' sometime of how jebus rescued their hearts from the satanic clutches of atheism and how they were never happy blowing mommy and daddy's money, partying every night and murdering children in between making porn flicks and shooting heroin.

[aitm]

The belief in gods are what should be clarified as "beliefs". There is mountains of circumstantial evidence that reject gods that far outweighs any religious tenets. The problem is they are not interested in the embarrassment of finding out they were fooled.

[stromboli]

People seek out "ultimate truths"; have done so from early civilization. One of my favorite book titles is The Sheep Look Up
By John Brunner. If you know sheep, you would understand.

The problem for theists/agnostics is that they try to impose a belief system on everything. Atheism is not a belief system. It is a starting point. If you spent time here you would discover that we have no dogma, only common agreement on subjects like science, morality, human behavior and so on. There is also a lot of disagreement here. We have vegetarians, Wiccans, gun possessers, gun haters, liberal/social democrats, libertarians, and so on.

Think of it this way; christianity-or some forms of it- teach that masturbation, homosexuality, drinking (Mormon) taking the lord's name in vain, sex outside of marriage, etc. are all bad/evil/sinful or whatever. But scientifically there is nothing wrong with masturbation per se, homosexuality is not deviant but normal and found in nature, men and women tend to be sexual in nature, and so on.

Religions teach one set of standards that doesn't jibe with the real physiology of man. So what kind of god insists on behavior that is not really natural? One created during a long ago historic period when those impositions were normal, and the whole truth not known. An antiquated belief system.

Which would you rather believe, a scientifically/physiologically valid set of truths or an imposed and now invalid one? 

[the_antithesis]

I'm agnostic, and I'm having a hard time understanding atheists. From what I've recently read on a couple of internet sites it's possibly the belief in no god or spiritual being whatsoever.

Well, what's a god or "spiritual being?"

[12Monkeys]

Atheist don't say that there 100% definitely is no God. They say there almost certainly is no god. Hence "agnostic-atheism".

[MagetheEntertainer]

There are several things that you cannot know for sure such as
whether or not you're real
whether or not you're in the matrix
whether or not you're in some kind of simulation in which you are real but the entire universe is not
whether or not you perceive color the same way as everyone else
whether or not I have an invisible flying T-Rex named steve
And whether or not there is a god.

These are called un-falsifiable hypothesis which as the label suggest that there really is not absolute definitive way to prove any of them wrong.  What we do know however is that if there is a God, he/she/it is not Allah,  Yahweh, Jehova, Thor, Oden, Zeus, Etc...  Because the theoretical god does not give a shit what we do as humans, otherwise he/she/it would not allow us to do things it doesn't want us to do.  We also know that whether or not there is a God doesn't matter much because all God would have done is caused the Big Bang and then left our universe alone forever (can you say dead beat dad?)