I noticed that you stated,
"I decided to start this thread for a few reasons. One reason was that I do not know what people think of atheists, I do not have any personal experience with that. I decided to start this thread to experience what people thought of atheists."
I will provide a definition of Atheism for you.
1) A person whom has not received the revelation of Jesus Christ.
If you had been given the revelation of Jesus you would not be an atheist.
What do I think of atheists? They do not understand Christianity.
By that definition a Muslim, a Jew, and a Hindu are atheists. I'm sure you see that is not a correct definition for that alone.
According to many a dictionary, an atheist is a person who doesn't believe in or who denies the existence of god(s).
I am curious, what is the revelation of Jesus? Is it hearing his message, hearing God's call, or is it being touched by the Spirit?
As for the last sentence, many atheists were devout Christians before, and many atheists, trying to quell the doubts in their spirits, read the bible through and through many times. They certainly do understand Christianity.
I am not one of those atheists however. I was raised catholic, but I never really believed. I understand what Christianity is supposed to be, in the grand scheme of things, I suppose.
s.i.e.
I love your idea of starting this thread.
Why thank you!
The concept that agnosticism is a position/statement of knowledge, and theism is a position/statement of belief, is something I haven't thought about quite in that way before. Thanks for that. Yet, it is also very curious to me.
I was never one to argue much about semantics, but that is it as far as I understand it.
You say, in the above, that "God can exist", and you won't make any claims that he can't, or doesn't.
I haven't yet. My own beliefs on the matter (which of course can't be proven or disproven, but which to me seems to account for the most real-world evidence) is that either God is absent, or he doesn't care as much as the Bible says He does. Let me explain. There is suffering, war, hunger, poverty, violence, yes. Overall, these might be part of God's grand scheme of things. (I think it's plain human nature). What I object to is extreme cases of personal violence, where one individual does terrible things to other individual(s) (eg: torturing children, etc) where God does not intervene. Does one individual out of 7 billion weight so much in the balance of things that God can't lift a finger to help?
However, I have recently read a testimony, that while I can't confirm the truth of it, seems unlikely that it was a made up story. It related the life of one unfortunate individual, who went through terrible hardships, but there was always some help, somewhere, someone willing to help him go the extra mile. There were too many coincidences for me to dismiss them all out of hand.
In short, my position on the matter would be that if God is watching, he is either watching and helping who he sees fit, or watching and helping as he can according to some galactic plan. To me, these all have almost the same weight, which is not terribly much. Of course, He might also be watching and not intervening at all because of His plan, or He might be watching and not caring at all. It is also possible that he may be there, unaware of us and not looking in our direction.
I find it rather arrogant when people claim we are God's chosen people. Christians make up less than half of the 7 billion Homo sapiens on the planet, which is only one species out of 1.7 million of species, on one planet in one solar system out of billions, in one galaxy out of trillions.
But I cannot say that God does not exist, as I know I cannot back that claim. The god that is defined in the Bible is a very specific entity, but also very much subject to interpretation. He is very subjective, and I cannot objectively say he doesn't exist.
Yet, you've put your stake in the ground not on gnosticism/agnosticism (i.e., a statement on what you can or can't "know"), but on theism (what you believe).
You say you are an Atheist.
I know I do not believe. I do not have faith. Most people use agnostic as undecided in their faith, and I wished to avoid confusion.
The fact that you have concluded to take a position on belief before knowledge, seems like a bit of a disconnect, if your sitting in the chair of the Atheist. (if you're sitting in the chair of the Christian, it may not be seen as a disconnect, because in my view, Atheists have built their case on Faith as much as the Christian) For the Atheist, it's got to be a disconnect, because they hinge everything they do the logical/rationale/scientific, and other things they think they can "know".
Yet you, are seeming to shy away from taking a position on what you can or can't know, and you have jumped straight to belief.
I see what you mean. My position might seem like a disconnect, because I had decided not to go into the debate about evidence for atheism, as I have seen many times on many forums such discussions degenerating, getting bogged down in pointless details, or simply going into name-calling. But this seems like an exceptional forum with exceptional members, and I won't try to hold anything back.
As for a position of knowledge, I am currently doing my undergraduate, with a bachelors in biochemistry specialized with honours, option in microbiology and immunology (sounds big and fancy, but it doesn't mean much
). Being in science, I know what I know, I know what I can know (and with access to scientific databases, I have access to a lot more than I'll ever know or understand) and I can make a guess as to what I can't know.
It might seem like a disconnect if you assume that the atheist position is based on faith just as the theist position is, but I assure you that is not the case. I try to only believe in justifiable things. I minimize leaps of faith as much as I can, and if I cannot fit a belief with reality, I will stop believing such a thing. If evolution were proved wrong and a better theory came around, I would drop evolution within the minute.
I hope this answers some of your questions, feel free to ask more if anything is unclear.
Either you are one of the more honest Atheists I've heard from, or you have some work to do (for yourself, if you wish) by reverse engineering your belief system to first settle on what you do/don't know...and then jump into what you then believe.
I always try to remain within knowledgeable areas without going into faith. As a child, I was always trying to understand everything, to know how things worked, why things were the way they were. I spent many hours reading about volcanoes, cold fusion, light theory, and many more on wikipedia. I never assumed I knew how something worked until I double-checked it. And I have never come across an explanation that required the presence of God to explain anything. In all of science, God is an unnecessary variable. You can remove God from science entirely and it wouldn't change a thing.
My position on faith is that it's very nice for people to believe in God if they want, and if it makes them a better person, so much the better. I do not believe in God, I do not believe there is something out there. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but we don't necessarily believe in Bigfoot either, if you see what I mean. I will believe things if I feel I am justified in believing those things.
On another note: do you also believe in Karma, and if so, is that what guides your morality?
I do not believe that the universe will somehow balance my actions, that if I do right, then in some cosmic accounting book, a good deed is owed to me. I do believe however that by being good to the people around me, I will make them happier, and they will be more motivated to be good towards me and others. Even if no good deed returns to me, I have helped others, I have made them happier, and perhaps they have helped out others I do not know.
I suppose I follow the golden rule, do unto others as you would have done unto you, but I do my best to help whenever I can. I follow what I see as good and avoid what I see is bad. I do not pronounce myself on things I do not know, I do not blindly believe what others tell me nor do I reject what others say simply because I do not agree with them. There are very few issues that are black or white, merely shades of grey.
Now I'm confused.
I thought Theism/Atheism is a declaration of belief. You say that Atheism is system "built on lack of faith". So then, can you explain/clarify...because it seems to me that this could imply one or more of the following:
a) Atheists believe that having a lack of faith is a virtue, and "right"
b) Atheists believe that "faith" is wrong / incorrect / misguided / stupid / senseless
c) Atheists believe they don't believe [in theistic things]
I do believe (ah ah
) you have forgotten one option.
d) Atheists don't believe that the Judeo-Christian faith, the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, etc etc etc, any claims as to the supernatural, are real. It's not that they don't believe they don't believe, they don't believe period. They act as though there is no god, gods, deities, fairies, and assorted myths.
An atheist would no more consult with God before undertaking a task as you would consult with the Tooth Fairy, with Santa, with the Easter Bunny or with Frosty the snowman. To an atheist, you live your life as though there is nothing out there, nothing supernatural. However, it is seen as somewhat foolish to have 100% blind faith of practically anything, because you are basing yourself 100% on something that doesn't appear to be there. Some see it as stupid and senseless, some see it as misguided, some see it as wrong, many see it as incorrect, but an atheist wouldn't care what you believe so long as you kept it private. Go to church all you want, pray all you want. To an atheist, it doesn't really do anything, so why bother? Atheists do mind when it creates problems though.
Obviously I'm not saying this is 100% accurate, but if you cannot feel it, touch it, smell it, see it, hear it, measure it in any ways with all our instruments, or that theories make prediction of their presence based on real-world data, chances are it's not there, and you should live your life accordingly. I have never at any time wondered if God would approve of what I was doing. I always pondered what the effects of my actions would be on my fellow human beings though. I can perhaps offend God by blaspheming, but I can very seriously harm many humans near me. It is a great responsibility we all carry.
Furthermore, you say that Atheists "don't believe something purely on faith", implying that there is both faith (but your quick to say it's not built on that!), as well as something else involved in being an Atheist.
Being an atheist is basing your worldview on something solid, something practical, something measurable and repeatable and predictable and dependable. You cannot have a field and ask for a miracle to rain on it twice a week. An atheist would not even consider that. He would instead consider the river, the stream, the public water service. Being an atheist means not relying on some supernatural aid.
So for an atheist, you base yourself on knowledge first and foremost, and what you cannot base your actions on due to lack of knowledge, only then do you use faith. You try to minimize using faith, as it is sort of a last resort, a shoddy fix if you will, relying on gut feelings. But faith in and of itself is not bad, it is simply not as reliable. If faith can help some, as I said, so much the better. An atheist however will not rely on faith.
Maybe that "something else", for you, is Agnosticism? Perhaps you are an Agnostic Atheist? Which to me...would mean that you both don't know whether God exists, and therefore (or, "in addition to"), you also won't believe in God, or a deity.
You are partly right. I try to know what I do know, to guess what I don't know, and to be able to discern that which I may never know. We may never find out if God truly does exist, as he is outside of time and space (according to most). Therefore, why bother with it? Live your life instead of arguing about something that we won't be able to figure out anyways. So I am an atheist because I don't believe, and technically an agnostic because I don't know whether God exists or not. Frankly I don't care. If belief in a deity could get me free miracles, hey, count me in! If I have to be good for it, that's easy enough for me I suppose, I'm not an evil person. It might even make me a better person. But until there would be a net benefit to me or to others, I don't bother with it any more than I would with crystal healing.
However, if the biblical god were to exist, the same god who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, who ordered armies to march into cities, to pillage and kill, the sexist god who lowers women and orders the stoning of homosexuals and atheists, I would not praise him. I would not believe either, because I would know he existed, as knowledge would replace belief, but I would not praise him.
Jesus on the other hand was a really swell guy.
And would I then also be right to say that the two things play off each other? Agnosticism, and Atheism?
Depending on what agnostic refers to. If it is referring to belief, you have theism on one end, atheism on the other, and agnosticism in the middle. If you are referring to God, well both the theist and the atheist are agnostics, because they cannot know whether God exists. One believes he does, while the other doesn't, or lives his life as though God didn't exist.
I'm not sure where we can say one stops, and the other starts. How much of what you "know" vs what you "believe" makes up your Atheistic system, and how do you go about separating those two, so succinctly, that you can sleep well at night?
Knowledge in and of itself is amoral. Knowledge is neither good nor bad. In that sense I have no problems sleeping at night. What you choose to do with that knowledge however is another story. What you choose to do reflects your morality. If you are good, you will do good things with your knowledge. If you are bad, you will do bad things with that knowledge. One can believe to be good, but do bad things. So how does one know?
There is one golden standard that doesn't care one bit for us, and thus won't change one bit for us nor try to change us one bit either. It is the universe. If your actions have a net benefit, then it is more likely to be good. However, one can do good things by committing bad acts, such as the violence necessary to overthrow Qaddafi. One can also do bad things by committing good acts. Healing wounded people is good, but if you know those people will go out day after day murdering innocent people, is healing them not causing a net bad effect?
In the end, the one thing you must never stop doing is questioning yourself, questioning what you do, questioning who you are and what you want. If you can find answers to those questions, you may act upon them to be the person you want to be. If you cannot find answers, do not question yourself non-stop until you paralyze yourself with them, but never stop asking entirely either.
Is it worth it? In the end, that depends on who you want to be. I know everything I do depends on me. I must do what I can, and I will face the consequences of my actions. I will try to be the best person I can be, to myself and to others. And I will never have to rely on deities to do it.
I hope I have answered your questions! Thank you for posting here, this is exactly the kind of discussion I wished for!
