Not really since with atheism - or rather materialism/physicalism which seems to be what you actually mean - there isn’t anything to annihilate. For anyone. No choice in the matter; you die and you are gone regardless of what you believe.
It’s not fear of Hell that makes us atheists.
I repeat- it’s *not *fear of Hell that makes us atheists.
The reason we’re atheists is simply because the Christian myth- or any brand of theism, actually- just simply doesn’t make any sense. It’s unnecesary. Adding in Annihilationism doesn’t improve theism, in our eyes, as the underlying beliefs still don’t make any sense.
I think I see where the communication breakdown began. Why don’t you tell us what you believe are the “beliefs of atheism”?
I can agree with this to a point. Why would God want to punish people who don’t believe in Him when he hasn’t exactly made it a point to show that he is really even up there at all.
Now a Christian would say, “But He gave is ONLY SON. What more do you want!”. Okay, but how do I know that? Because it is in a book? There are thousands of ancient myths. You need to give me something to go on here..
No, it’s no more palatable than any other religious tripe. The problem with trying to contort religious beliefs to be more acceptable to an atheist is that they are all equally invalid regardless of how pleasant or inclusive they might be. All of our cumulative knowledge points to one conclusion: When we die there is nothing after. We simply cease to be. Now, it is of course possible, but totally improbably that there is something beyond death, but it is likely to be something totally unlike anything we could imagine. Either way, there is no reason for it to affect you conducting yourself as a sensible, rational being during the one lifetime we KNOW we get. It is sort of the inverse of Pascal’s wager really.
I was actually thinking about this on the way to breakfast, thinking of perhaps a poll question.
Atheism is a grouping of beliefs under there is no god, while theism is a grouping of beliefs there is is a god.
As such Atheism is not a religion as theism is not a religion, but the subsets are, such as Buddhism and Christianity, and the various denominations from there, which are the religions. Then we get into personal beliefs and if you will spiritual relationships.
Atheism contains many subsets of beliefs just as theism does, sometimes I have heard such breakdowns ad new vs old Atheism, hard vs soft, and agnostic which actually could be put in either category as it’s the basic I don’t know if there is a god, you also have prominent Atheistic writers and speakers and their followers, those are the people Atheists will cite when asked questions, this forms a system of like beliefs. You also have many flavors of atheistic religions such as the many forms of Buddhism, and people who belief in the spiritual but not a god. Many of these are organized belief systems.
A question that is telling is what happens when you die, any answer but I don’t know is a belief system.
The problem is that believers see everything in terms of their belief. A Christian sees atheism as a form of anti-Christianity, which is no more meaningful than saying Christianity and atheism are two different forms of anti-Buddhism.
A religious person trying to define atheism in a religious framework is like a bird asking atheism what color its feathers are. Atheism explains it’s not a bird and it doesn’t have feathers. The bird says, “Yes, I understand you’re not a bird but hypothetically if you were a bird, what color would your feathers be?”
Well, is “I lack a belief in god” a belief? I lack a belief that I’ve won any Olympic medals or fathered any sons; is that a grouping of beliefs?
Is there is a god a belief. Hey I have met God, it is just what is*. So it’s perhaps a starting premise for the sub sets of beliefs both grouped (religion) and non-grouped (personal)
- The scripture verse when God told Moses came to mind on this, I am what I am, interesting… anyway
I’m not sure that’s the point.
For the moment, leave God out of it. I’ve met women who were over thirty years old; I unsurprisingly thus believe that women sometimes live past the age of thirty. I’ve never yet met a woman who was over thirty centuries old; I unsurprisingly lack a belief that women sometimes live past the age of three thousand. In your opinion, are those statements mere mirror images of each other, each with its own starting premise? Or is the mere lack of a belief the default?
Yes and no.
Thus far, mounting evidence points to there not being any “soul” (or however you want to call it) inside us and disconnected from the body, as we’d been assuming all along. We’ve actually seen things like consciousness, love, empathy, anger and so forth being the result of chemical functions and reactions in things that go “bloop, bloop” rather than the property of something higher and loftier than flesh. We actually can manipulate these abstract feelings through material stuff like drugs and chemicals. Which points to us being machines made out of meat, no more and no less.
We’ve also seen all those things that go “bloop, bloop” stopping at the point of death. As such, it seems fairly rational to assert that consciousness, emotion and whatnot also stop there, end of the story.
Of the parts that supposedly comes later, be it ascending to the Pearly Gates, tumbling into the Abyss, spiralling away towards the center of the Galaxy, or even reincarnation, there is zero evidence whatsoever. So there’s as much grounds to believe in them as there is to believe purple dinosaurs live in Detroit’s sewers. IOW, judging by the existing hard facts, positive belief is much less rational than the belief in nothingness (at least until more facts come to light).
What I’m trying to say is that if you asked me “Why do you believe there’ll only be maggots after you die ?”, I could point to all sorts of biological minutiae, studies, facts and so forth that shaped this “belief”, or rather the lack of belief that we’re anything but meat machines. OTOH If I asked a religious person “Why do you believe [whatever it is you believe]”, the only things they could give me would be “it says so in this book”, “I like to believe this”, “I refuse to believe we’re only meat machines” or “the voices in my head tell me so”. None of which are very compelling arguments.
The OP seems to imply that non-believers are living life hiding behind the couch and watching life through gaps between our fingers. As if our non-belief is like someone avoiding a cancer screening because they might thus avoid having cancer.
You can promise me judgment and eternal damnation or 72 virgins and a mule. Either way, the palatability is irrelevant. In fact, the idea that there’s some bargain to be struck kind of undermines the religionist position.
This would go to a belief in the human life span. A statement of a 3000 yr old woman would either fit into your belief system or not.
The mere lack of belief would generally indicate a questioning state, that is not the same as a negative belief. Is there a God? answering yes or no are beliefs, I don’t know is a lack of belief. Is there a 3000 yr old woman, yes and no are beliefs, I don’t know is also a lack of belief.
So, again: "I
So, again: isn’t “I lack a belief in God” a mere lack of belief, and thus not the same as what you’re terming a negative belief?
An atheist isn’t somebody who says “I reject God.”*
An atheist is somebody who says “there’s nothing to reject.”
*Okay, I’ll grant that there are some silly people who become atheists to piss God off.
I would like to caution you to the causality error, just because you can get result X by doing Y does not mean that every time you get result X is it because of a Y.
Your argument is perfectly accommodated by a belief systems that give us, as creatures of the flesh, the ability to do the same things as spiritual being, but we use the physical world to do so.
This is a strawman argument.
Throughout time and ongoing today God, angels and the like are coming to their children (us) in person and helping us along. They do not chose to us your preferred method of contact - your assumption that if they exist you would have hard evidence is in error. They are living very highly intelligent beings and they are in control, not us.
Your basic argument is with people who have not known God or the angels, but taking the word of others who follow them, but you are claiming your point against those who know God. And You actually do the same thing as who you are arguing against by citing others and books by man claiming there is very little chance that there is a soul.
LOL Glad I put the coffee down b4 I read this or you would have owed me a keyboard 
Where did he(or anyone else in this thread) do this?
I lack a belief that there is a guy named Tom Fiskaa trekking across Antarctica at this moment. That is different then saying that I do not belief that there is a guy named Tom Fiskaa trekking across Antarctica.
Atheism is in the corner of already decided. Once you have accepted atheism (or Theism) you have accepted a belief that you will use to help define your world. The word Atheism comes from ‘no god’.