I had a nice talk to a beautiful theist girl on friday and her arguments were all well rounded and solid, contrary to 90% of beleivers I have met. I still wasn’t converted… but neither could I deny the plausibility of her ideas and comments. I am still waiting for God to enter my life as she said … and I reckon it will take a while or never happen.
This got me thinking… one of us is wrong. There is no way going around that. Unless somehow I managed to exist without God and she was created by God. We both have solid arguments… but one is wrong no matter what.
Now NOT DISCUSSING the existence or not of God… but OUR positions in respect to beleiving or not. What is the worse mindset ?
To deny the divine creator that made you and neglect his “work” ? Cynicism and Negativity ?
OR
To be delusional and to need to beleive in a non-existant God ? Beleiving and faith in non-existant mythos ?
Being an atheist I clearly think that not beleiving in God would hardly make Him angry or frustrated… as He should be above said feelings. Lack of faith combined with a good life and good morality make us heaven bound just like kneeling theists no ?
The other side could argue better why not praying would make my life miserable and incomplete… and even if God doesn’t exist they like and feel better for praying… whilst I dwell in the negative energies of rationalism and cynicism.
Are kids who beleive in Santa Claus happier than those who don’t… even though “everyone” gets Xmas presents ?
Why is this necessarily negative? Only if you have entrenched yourself too deeply into the theistic mindset and universal morality, is this a “negative” belief.
As long as you can live with it, there’s no problem. Of course, when it affects other people, then I consider this a problem. But that always happens and there’s no escape.
Of course kids who believe in Santa Clause are happier. There is no doubt that Christians are happier than Atheist if they truly believe what they preach. I was a Christian in my teens and early 20s and being agnostic now I have to say my feelings about my death have changed dramatically.
Used to be as I had no fear of it whereas now this may be all I have so I tend to dread death.
If you are one of those blessed people who can believe what is so clearly a faerie tale to me then I envy you. If death can be not avoided then let us be happy while we are here.
The true question is; Is happiness really THAT important? I agree it’s important to a degree but westerners tend to make it the be all - end all. To be a religious person you trade in your openmindedness and lust for knowledge for happiness it seems.
There are days that I think I would gladly train my superbrain for a feeling of peace and I often wonder if it is possible to have both but ironically the search for truth is more important than happiness for those of us who reserve judgement until all the facts are in.
-Mocara
“I guess I need a quote…oh…maybe that’ss be my quote.” - Mocara
Athiests all around the world have a pretty consistent vision of what makes the world work. Orthodox atheists don’t split hairs of doctrine with New School atheists.
Theists have no such binding solidarity. For most of them, it’s “Believe as I do or eternal damnation awaits.” Catholics, Mormons and Unification Church types all consider themselves Christian–but they don’t consider each other Christian. There’s infighting among most Protestant denominations (whose only common thread is “The Catholics got it wrong”). And Jews… as a close Jewish friend of mine put it, “You put three Jews together in one room and you’ll have five firm, irreconcilable opinions.” I don’t think we have any illusions about how much solidarity Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims feel for one another.
If you’re going to start going to church “just in case,” I think you’re being less than honest with yourself. If you start going to meet women, picture being married to a cheerful Christian woman for 30 or 40 years; they drop the Happy act right after the honeymoon. If you have a genuine religious epiphany, run with it. But my favorite character from the New Testament was the Unrepentant Thief. He had integrity.
Why would believing in Santa make you happier than knowing your parents are giving you presents? Come to think of it, that’s not too bad a comparison in some respects. Being an atheist doesn’t imply a cynical or negative view of the world.
I’m not really interested in hedging my bets on stakes that only exist if you’ve already made up your mind. That is, the rewards and punishments aren’t an issue if you don’t believe in them. Krokodil says it’s intellectually dishonest, I’ll add that it’s cowardly. I’m more interested in being right than being safe.
Whichever one is in less accord with the facts of your existence; barring evidence either way, whichever one leads you to being less of a worthwhile human being.
The problem is that once you “believe” as a way of hedging your bets, you’re screwed:
If atheism is wrong, then there’s a god. Ah, but which god? And what happens if you chose the wrong god? It’s safest to just believe in them all, right?
Unfortunately, a lot of religions disallow other religions, so if you do this, odds are you’re still just as screwed. Pop quiz- what’s the first commandment in the Christian bible?
At least with atheism, you’ve got the courage of your convictions.
As an aside, I’ve never understood theists that blindly follow the faith that their parents practice. What a monumental conceit- that THEY just happened to be born into a family that practices the “correct” religion.
If, in fact, no God exists, then it all comes down to pragmatism: would it make you a happier, healthier, better person to believe or not to believe? Why not believe what you want, or what “works” for you? There’s no one waiting to give you a gold star for getting it right. (“But it’s not true!” you object? Well then, you hold Truth as an Ultimate Standard, a sort of God, if you will—but why? Why is truth important?)
On the other hand, if God does exist, that hardly settles things. You still have to figure out which God exists, what you believe about God, and what your response or relationship to God should be. The God whom most theists believe in is one whom it would be to your benefit to know and develop a relationship with, both for the sake of the here and the hereafter. And the developing of this relationship is a lifelong process; if you think you’ve got God all figured out, your God is too small.
Being a believer won’t necessary make someone happy., just because you won’t fear death (besides, it’s not like all theists weren’t fearing death and all atheists awfully affraid of it). For instance, I remember this documentary with a homosexual orthodox Jew who appeared to be as miserable as you can get. Were he atheist, he would certainly be happier.
It’s my opinion that neither viewpoint (as far as each individual is concerned; they only get troublesome in groups and those groups attempting to impose it’s will on the others) is or can be “worse” than the other.
If you are a theist, and are wrong, there is no penalty or punishment. You die and simply cease to be.
If you are an atheist, and are wrong, well, it depends on which version of theism turns out to be the “right” one, but for Christians, considering there was no place that we now call “Hell” in the original bible, there was only a “place not with God”, an oblivion or ‘state of unbeing’, the end result is the same as the previous example. You simply die and cease to be.
two opposing truths cannot coexist and still be true. That is a fact of logic.
As far as theism goes, Religion in my opinion is a bad thing. There is no good that was ever done by religion that outweighs the great evil it has done and continues to do.
I do envy those who can believe though. It would make life alot simpler and alot less depressing.
The fallacy is that there are only two possibilities: god or no god. In reality, there are an infinite number of things that you could believe. Among those is that believing two contradictory beliefs will make you writhe in agony eternally. Thus the only truly logical thing is to not believe in any non-rational, non-verifiable beliefs.
