I am an Atheist and always have been.

Trade said:
I'm an Atheist. But I tell people I'm Agnostic so that maybe they won't hate me quite as much.

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I tell people I'm agnostic and I think everyone would be if they thought deeply enough about it. Even Christians who struggle with faith are in one sense in process and could fairly describe themselves as agnostic. It is simply about epistemology, not a particular faith position.
 
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RambleTamble said:
There is too much evil in the world for me to believe in some altruistic god. There are just too many evil people. From what I can tell, about 1/3 of the population are sociopaths, psychopaths, malignant narcissists, sadists...

Some of the most evil people in the world are religious, and so much evil throughout history has been perpetrated in the name of god or someone's religion. If there is a god who has power over people and events, why does he allow there to be so much evil? If he doesn't have that power, what good is he? In that case, is god just another word for nature?
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1/3? Wow.
You don't believe He exists, but imagine He does for a moment. People have unrealistic expectations of God. He can and will end it all and then we get a new world, but if He does that now, a lot of innocent people will die too. He waits for the harvest to come in, for people to get saved. People want God to stop wars but in a sweet way. How? The only way to stop WWII was bombing.
God gave authority over the earth to man and man invited satan in. That's like if you rent a house. If it gets a too big mess because you invite psycho's, all the landlord can do is kick everyone out.
 
MarkD said:
I tell people I'm agnostic and I think everyone would be if they thought deeply enough about it.
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I suppose you're right. Now that I think about it I might be open to believing in God under the right circumstances. Like if he or she were to get his or her ass down here and do some really good tricks to convince me. Something like that parting of the Red Sea thing maybe. But I would have to see it in person. I'm not going to fall for some fake AI or CGI thing on video.
 
For myself, I think it all boils down to faith. Sometimes I question things that happen that are contrary to what I was taught to believe. I feel guilty at times.
Man does not make me feel guilty but I myself make myself feel guilty. I then pray to God to help me with my faith because I do question his existence at times.and ask for forgiveness. I tell him that he forgave Doubting Thomas for questioning his resurrection when He had to show Thomas His hands with the holes from where nails were driven through them and the holes in his side.
Faith is a feeling just like love is. When you love someone, it gives you a feeling of reassurance. When you have faith in God, you have a feeling of reassurance. A feeling of reassurance that we aren't here just by happenstance. If we were, what would be the purpose of our even being here at all?
I'm not trying to convince anyone. That's a personal decision. I've been a work in progress all of my life and I probably will be until the day that I die. Accepting and believing in Christ is a personal matter and all I can do is have faith that He is with me to guide me through life's challenges until it's time to leave my earthly home. If I'm wrong, what will I have lost? Our bodies are mortal but our soul (consciousness) doesn't die. It lives on.
 
Messy said:
The guy from the church we went to was Jan Zijlstra. He always prayed for everyone. They came to his meetings also from reformed churches, cause their churches don't pray like that for the sick.

It was in the Newspaper and a doctor looked into it with a team from a university. But all they can say is: We can't explain it.

Redirect Notice

Fact or fiction? Chronically seriously ill people cured by praying

It seems like a story from the Bible: in 2007, wheelchair patient Janneke Vlot stood up after eighteen years and could suddenly walk again. By her own account, this was thanks to a prayer healing service. It intrigued general practitioner and researcher Dick Kruijthof from Bleskensgraaf, and more than twelve years ago he asked the question: is there an explanation for this type of healing or not? Now he has the answer. Or does he?

Patients who have been healed of their illness as a result of a prayer. It is a subject that most people have an opinion on, says Kruijthoff. "It is something unknown to many people, but now we know more."

After an appeal by the GP and his team, it turns out Janneke Vlot is not the only miracle. "We received 83 registrations. We investigated 27 cases, 11 of which were 'medically remarkable'. Unexpected healings were observed here."

Not just a common cold
These cases are not just about a common cold. "Usually, it is a serious chronic disease such as Parkinson's or Crohn's disease. You sometimes see a slight improvement with these diseases, but never so suddenly."

Unexpected cures
In *Het Kontakt*, the general practitioner describes miraculous stories he encountered during his research. "A woman who could walk a maximum of fifty meters on crutches due to severe multiple sclerosis had started praying more because of her illness. She planned to attend a prayer service. It didn't come to that; after an afternoon nap, all her symptoms turned out to have disappeared."

Even if the patient does not count on a cure, things can turn out well through prayer. "Another woman with various illnesses actually prayed to end her life. The next morning she walked down the stairs and suddenly realized that it went almost effortlessly. In the weeks that followed, almost all her ailments disappeared. Of the 33 pills she used to take, she now takes only 1."

Too good to be true
Kruijthoff was unable to find a genuine scientific reason for these events in his research. "There is no direct explanation. The only thing we can observe is that something special happens at these moments." Additionally, the GP says he discovered that when someone recovered from illness, it often happened after prayer.

However, he does not speak of a breakthrough for patients; that would be too good to be true. "At work, I see many people praying for healing; this much more often doesn't happen."

For Kruijthoff, not much changes regarding the way he carries out his daily work as a GP either. "As a GP, I have always based my work on science; that does not change. People expect me to work in an expert manner."


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When my mother was 10 yrs old, she had polio and couldn't walk without crutches. She said one day out out of the clear blue sky that God had healed her. She dropped her crutches and walked without them ever since. When she was probably in her late 30's, the doctor opened her up and discovered cancer. I forget where they said it was. A few days later, he opened her up to remove the cancer and the cancer was no where to be found. I remember that incident years ago. Did my mom have cancer or was she misdiagnosed with cancer? We'll never know. All I know is my mom had a lot of faith.
 
In a nutshell: I was raised in a very church going environment, thoroughly believe the teachings of Jesus, and that he made a huge sacrifice as an example, for the road to salvation-rejecting worldly vices(greed, hatred, covetousness) and view spirituality and reunion with God as the ultimate destination.
I respect other faiths(Islam,Buddhism) and other spiritual/philosophical practices, and can't help but believe that if you're a good person and treat others fairly, that you'll be rewarded with/ return to some kind of afterlife.
I understand that the Bible, as a collection of ancient writings, heavily edited by 'motivated' forces, is nevertheless a fine collection of "how to" live correctly. The Old Testament belongs to the Hebrews, it is a good read to determine "from whence" we came.
The New Testament is, IMO the "upgraded" directive to follow the path that God intended.
 
officerripley said:
I'm an atheist on my good days and an agnostic on bad days. I guess the best way to describe myself is that I just don't believe in anything supernatural. As actor Julianne Moore put it when saying she's atheist, "There's no there there."
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I feel very much the same way, but never gave myself a specific label. I did 8 years in Catholic grade school, which normally meant spending some time in church seven days a week. So I was raised a Catholic, but happily walked away when I went to public high school and never looked back.

Couldn't take any more fairy tales. I respect those who are religious, each of us have to live our lives the way we want. I was always a good person, raised by a kind loving family. Do unto others, didn't need a book for that. Don't believe in heaven or hell, would rather cherish my time here on earth, no rewards or punishments after death, IMO.
 
Trade said:
I suppose you're right. Now that I think about it I might be open to believing in God under the right circumstances. Like if he or she were to get his or her ass down here and do some really good tricks to convince me. Something like that parting of the Red Sea thing maybe. But I would have to see it in person. I'm not going to fall for some fake AI or CGI thing on video.
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Trade said:
I'm an Atheist. But I tell people I'm Agnostic so that maybe they won't hate me quite as much.

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Oh excuse you for caring...
If only atheists had replied to this thread I'm sure we'd still be on page 1.
I'm an atheist, if you respect that hen it's a mutual respect, what ever your faith may be and there's no need for any further discussion. If you don't respect it I don't care.
 
When I was recovering from surgery a man of the cloth visited me. Don't know his faith base so that is why described as "man of the cloth".

I thought I'd ask some questions that he might have an answer for.

1. How did God come to be?
2. Who or what are the "our" in made in "our" image?
3. Since fossils of prehistoric animals exist when did the garden of Eden begin?
4. Why the delay in populating the earth?
5. According to the biblical account in Genesis, God created humans on the sixth day of creation, which is part of a six-day creation narrative.
6. God is pictured as having a recognizable body for much like we look like now. In what form does a human take in heaven?

No answer to any of those.

I don't care one way or the other what gets a person thru the day. Faith or no faith what possible difference could it be for me?
 
Knight said:
When I was recovering from surgery a man of the cloth visited me. Don't know his faith base so that is why described as "man of the cloth".

I thought I'd ask some questions that he might have an answer for.

1. How did God come to be?
2. Who or what are the "our" in made in "our" image?
3. Since fossils of prehistoric animals exist when did the garden of Eden begin?
4. Why the delay in populating the earth?
5. According to the biblical account in Genesis, God created humans on the sixth day of creation, which is part of a six-day creation narrative.
6. God is pictured as having a recognizable body for much like we look like now. In what form does a human take in heaven?

No answer to any of those.

I don't care one way or the other what gets a person thru the day. Faith or no faith what possible difference could it be for me?
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1 God is not created nor came into existence.

2. God the Father, Jesus before incarnation and the Holy Spirit. Jesus walked in the Garden.

3. 6000 years ago or so. Flood of Noah. Behemoth is in Job.

4. They're not rabbits. Don't know.

5. You mean they always say 7 day creation. Yes that's true.

6. Human. They always say that with NDE's. Chinese orphan kids visited heaven in the start of the 1900s. They saw friends that had died who showed them around. They cross examined them. They hoped one of them wouldn't die. Otherwise the others would get jealous.
 
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Rakaia said:
The theists seem to be heavily invested in this thread, which got me wondering do other atheists get similarly invested in faith based threads?
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The ones who do are on christian forums or atheist/ Freethinker forums. I always liked these discussions, but they often got banned on American christian forums for nothing, highly unfair. I liked a nice game of ping pong with a hardcore antitheist and trying to prove to him that God exists while receiving the troll of the year award from them. At least they showed some interest, cause they wanted to show me I was wrong too.

One guy was so funny. He was from a FreeThinker forum, met a JW at work and got concerned about christians. It came from a good heart. He really wanted to help us and show us that we were in some crazy cult. So he started trolling. That was very funny. Most people are not interested at all though. Only some muslims in horrible countries.

We had a guy in church who would go to Saudi Arabia I think to evangelize and it could get him in trouble, but he didn't care and these extreme muslims respected him, because they didn't mind giving their life either.
 
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RambleTamble said:
There is too much evil in the world for me to believe in some altruistic god. There are just too many evil people. From what I can tell, about 1/3 of the population are sociopaths, psychopaths, malignant narcissists, sadists...

Some of the most evil people in the world are religious, and so much evil throughout history has been perpetrated in the name of god or someone's religion. If there is a god who has power over people and events, why does he allow there to be so much evil? If he doesn't have that power, what good is he? In that case, is god just another word for nature?
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I agree that there are too many evils in the world. But then, I believe everybody has done bad things in their lives. The world is complicated.
 
Adequately answering @Knight 's Young Earth Creationist (YEC) religious questions would greatly expand the thread from the OP's original atheist statement. One can of course, just web search to read volumes of content, criticizing those dated ideas from any serious science based discussion. And whole very manipulative nonsense books have been published specifically to keep their faithful there.

YEC criticisms that won't change opinions of any more non-science persons still with those faith based ideas. A science based person cannot reasonably argue with science ignorant persons on most any subject because of the disconnect in understanding. Just as we see with the Global Warming debates today.

Much of the criticism can be placed against the self-serving dogma of Bible inerrancy and that the Holy Spirit inspired the whole OT and NT authors. Also, all the Omniscience, Omnipresent, Omnipotent (OOO) non-Bible based ideas that rose in the Middle Ages as philosophers argued qualities of what a perfect god needed to have. If God cannot do anything one can imagine... then He isn't a god!!!

Just nonsense to any honest scholars over centuries that have studied those matters. And why? Well after the Reformation, especially during the 17th century, numbers of religious leaders were afraid given the rise of science that people would increasingly stop believing them, leave their churches, and turn to scientists. Discussions actually documented in supposedly closed discussions of religious elites now readable on the Internet. Oh, how they HATED Darwin! As science into the 21st century has vastly expanded, such has become true with myriad younger educated people moving away from YEC dogma.

Unfortunately, between the dominant dogma of an OOO level god, and anything less, there is very little middle ground so ordinary persons tend to go from being religious when young, to not believing at all. But there is a middle ground for a non-OOO god that does not have magical, actions without forces, powers but is still worth following. And the Bible itself has much scripture that has always pointed in that direction. Much of the criticism like "Why does God allow all the Worlds evils" is misplaced as that is NOT his responsibility in a vast universe, vastly older than even our primitive multicellular Earth life, where we nascent warmongering Earth monkeys are but recent risen intelligent entities with considerable primitive social, political, economic, self caused problems.
 
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Rakaia said:
The theists seem to be heavily invested in this thread, which got me wondering do other atheists get similarly invested in faith based threads?
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In my quest to find God for 50 years of my life, I became frustrated enough to join an atheist forum, and possibly expose myself to ideas I had always rejected. It was there that I finally recognized that I was an atheist (defined as having no belief, rather that believing the negative, but others can define it how they want).

This was during the poorly named "new atheist" movement of a few years ago, poorly named in that there was nothing new about it at all. The arguments were the same as had existed for centuries, and the same arguments I had considered in my head all my life. The only thing new was that it was now in the open. Being excited about my own atheist epiphany, I came out of the closet, and began identifying myself to peers.

Rakaia, to address your question, what I found was that there are a surprising number of atheists all over the place. People who I had known for years, who had no interest in debating it or exchanging ideas in faith based threads, or even atheist based threads laughed off discussions about the topic like they would laugh off serious discussions about Big Foot.

So I would say some atheists are interested in faith based threads, but most don't care at all about having serious discussions on something that no one can prove. And most don't seem to need devoting any time to the subject at all. Of course that is based on my circle of people I know. I do enjoy these threads. It helps me understand how others think. This is not the same as understanding what others know, only about how others think or process "information."
 
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If there is no higher being, ok. What if there is, what if they're right? I err on the side of caution, if there's nothing else, no harm no foul. Take your beliefs to the grave, if there's nothing you'll never know it, if there is you will.
 
MarkD said:
Why paint with such a wide brush? I know some fundies do too but many believers do not. Do you welcome a race to the bottom to see who can misbehave worst or are you just looking to start a food fight?
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Maybe it helped him to get some bitterness off his chest. I didn't see anything there requiring a reply.
 
Trade said:
Nah. They get off on fantasising about us Atheists burning in everlasting Hell while they walk the streets of gold in Heaven.
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Unfortunately, I was mostly raised by a crazy old grandmother who was exactly that. As she put it, "It's so distressing for me to have to be around a nonbeliever since I can't help but picture what they're going to look and sound like burning in the flames of Hell. Just so distressing." And that is indeed distressing, you might well say? But if you had seen the relish with which she said that? She really did enjoy that, I think.
 
Trade said:
Nah. They get off on fantasising about us Atheists burning in everlasting Hell while they walk the streets of gold in Heaven.
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My colleague's girlfriend's dad had cancer. One day with a meeting he looked very depressed. What's up? His FIL would get euthanasia next week. What? My goodness. That colleague was atheist. I said: Is your FIL a bit open to the Gospel? Can you tell him? No not at all. He wants nothing to do with it.
I just panicked. Normally I wouldnt ask an atheist to tell someone the Gospel lol. He stayed very kind.

My God. Total panic the whole week. I refused to eat. My ex thought I had gone nuts. Prayed hours a day non stop when I came home from work. A week long every day.

After he said he was cremated I stopped trying to raise him from the dead. I got a dream. There was a bird and a fox and I kept shooting that fox who went after the bird but I couldn't hit him and I kept trying and then BAM a shot from heaven and the fox was dead and the bird flew to heaven.

I saw him in another dream with his eyes wide open. I believe he got saved. But it was a lot of stress. Would have been easier for me if he had just said: Sure. I'll convert.

Ian Mc Cormack died from a box jelly fish. His mom at the other end of the world, who didn't know where he was or what was going on, had to pray. He came back after 45 mins. He was an atheist. Just before he died he said: If there is a god help me to pray and he saw texts from the our Father and prayed that and forgave people and then died, saw Jesus and heaven. Since I saw that I just pray for everyone and believe God can show them.
 
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