I know I've already posted here, but I discovered a rant I wrote not long after I became an atheist, basically talking about why I did. Some of my opinions have changed slightly, but I still like this rant... Just in case people want another reason for why some people don't believe in (a) god(s):

I've always wondered... How can anyone actually have a religion they believe in one hundred percent? There are millions of religions, waxing and waning everyday, and yet each thinks that theirs is the true one: the one that will lead them to paradise after death or something of the sort. Yes, I will admit: I have no actual religion. To me, believing in a religion is basically just showing extreme guillibility: there is no actual proof that anything any religion claims has/will actually happen(ed). Sure, disagree all you want, but there's no escaping the truth. There are thousands of religions, some seeming to be polar opposites of each other, but all those who are loyal to them seem to think that theirs is telling the truth... But yet we don't know. For all we know, the Bible could just be a prank that has been pulled on the world: some drunken people might've just decided to make some science fiction story and pass it off as what really happened to the world, unknowingly pulling the shades over the future's eyes completely. How would anyone really know exactly what happened? We don't. We have no possible way of knowing that what the Bible says is true except those inked words that someone we have probably never heard of wrote. For all we know the authors of the Bible could've been complete nutcases in their own little fantasies. Perhaps the world really is cold; maybe there's nothing after death at all- we just cease to exist.

Of course, that's too macabre and horrifying for the human race to believe. We can't stand the fact that we might be the most advanced organisms or beings in the universe, so we construct someone bigger than us to make us believe that we are actually being watched by something. To make us believe that we don't control our fates, a god does. I think that we truly just want to make sure that we think there's someone/thing else out there so we don't go insane at the definite possibility that we could destroy the entire planet for good. But no. We have to imagine that someone out there is getting ready to snuff us out FOR A REASON, so we don't feel as if our lives have been for nothing when they actually have been completely pointless. Of course we are extremely shallow in the creation of our gods nonetheless. We have this feeling that we are "special": that we had to be shaped by something other than just Darwin's laws. We just assume that a higher being created us, not some stupid evolutionary chart. But just think: what created the god(s)? Do we have an answer? Of course not! We just say "he was already there." But couldn't you say the same about us?

Basically, religion makes no sense to me. It has no logical basis, no evidence, no anything. It could just be a complete sham we've kept running for hundreds of years to keep our sanity intact, but the simplicity of it all is that we are one of the highest beings. If there are any others they are on far-off planets, not sitting somewhere that is in nowhere in the sky, while not really being in the sky at all. Since there is logic in evolution, I can easily believe that: it gives you logic to base theories off of, not just simplistic instinctual "needs" that demand to be given a higher meaning to live or to be living.

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On a different note, I've read that the universe's existence boils down to one of two things that has been present for eternity: mass-energy, or God. Looking at which is a simpler explanation, I like to side with mass-energy (which can be either mass or energy, thanks to the mass-energy laws of conservation). (And I apologise if I'm interpreting something wrong here; I recall this mentioned in a book I read, so I am going to assume that the book was correct in what it stated.)


@ Envy09: I completely agree with you about churches. While my family hasn't made it a habit to go for a handful of years, my aunt used to teach Sunday school, and she'd often drag me to the Easter Mass. (I vaguely recall passing my time by counting the lights on the ceiling...) And, in all honesty, I think a lot of space could be saved if people just quit with the church thing and prayed at home, which would save building space (seriously, Christianity needs to stop it with the denominations- there are just too many churches) and gas (not to mention money). People also need to learn more about what they believe instead of having it fed to them by a preist/holy man/etc (would it really hurt anyone to read the entire Bible on their own time?). (Note: I'm not saying that all religious people are ignorant about their religion, but I've read that many Christians in the US are rather ignorant about what they're supposed to have "absolute faith" in.) But, I doubt that will ever happen.

/very possibly unintelligible rant

The answer is simple, my dear xObscurexOmenx. What else to believe in but God. Surely you don't want Satan, do you? The effect of positive thinking is quite useful. It keeps people from committing suicide. Why, since we have no evidence to support or deny the existence of God, why not make a leap of faith. I'll tell you, this world is better to be a world with God than without.

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Life, what would it be without so much wrongs and rights?


Star Trek XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiR-NETDr0

That's the problem. The word Buddha does not refer to a specific person, like the word Christ does. Rather, several have been named.

I'm sure you know Siddhartha Gautama. Buddha is any being who has become fully awakened (enlightened), and has experienced Nirvana.

So I don't know how deeply you believe in Buddhism, but hey, I think it's a good religion to believe in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha

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Life, what would it be without so much wrongs and rights?


Star Trek XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiR-NETDr0

I don't know....I'm from China and I guess they believe in Siddhartha Gautama.

You know as well as I do, if you are from China, that we don't really believe in a specific one. Yeah, we go to the Buddhist temple this month, but then we'll also go to the Taoist temple.

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Life, what would it be without so much wrongs and rights?


Star Trek XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiR-NETDr0

@xObscurexOmenx

I found your rant to be quite interesting and certainly it was worth the read. I find that your argument about the origins of the bible to be a very interesting b/c you are using it to defeat the credibility of the bible and I'm using it to strengthen it's credibility.

Let us assume for a moment that you decide to create a religion. Let's for argument's sake name it Obscure Omenism named after it's founder . Now the religion needs to be easy to understand and believable otherwise no one would bother to follow you, it also needs to have some way of benefiting in some way or form otherwise what would be the point of creating it? Let's say after a while you finally get some people to follow you but eventually your religion falls under persecution and turmoil. Are you still prepared to stick it out with this made up religion. Well let's say for arguments sake you do indeed stick with it. Now your persecutors get the government on their side and decide the best way to deal with you is to kill you unless you disband and give up your belief, are you willing to die for your made up religion, and are you going to encourage others to die a martyrs death to defend the ideals of your made up religion.

My point in making this rather drawn out(but still fun to think about) scenario is to ask what would be the purpose of making up the bible. The bible which is the combination of the old and new testament takes the prophesies of the messiah mentioned in the old testament (Dead Sea Scrolls if you want to know if it has been altered today and the hundreds of parchments of the letters of the early churches old as 100 AD atleast) and really expand on its meaning. The starters of the first church knew only who Jesus was and what he had taught them. They knew they had to tell the good news to others but they knew it would be rather hard to tell people that God came down from heaven came in the form of a man, and died for them so that they can have eternal life with God in heaven. But they were realized that this was news worth living a very poor, impoverished, persecuted life. They lived their lives in service of others and telling people this very unbelievable news. They were threatened, beaten, and killed for this belief. My question still remains what would be the point of making this up. I also understand that this isn't the end all be all of proof if you even consider this to be proof, but I hope it will keep your eyes open to continue searching. And asking questions.



Last edited by Zubz313 at 7:10 pm, Jun 30 2007

I would just like to ask one question:
What is God?
I know according to many religion that God made everything but... what is God?
Is God some perfect, all knowing being that wills everything?
Or is God flawed and ignorant? Please someone tell me.

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"Existence before essence. Man must first exist, encounter himself and then he defines himself afterwards."
Jean-Paul Sartre

He is seen as all knowing and perfect. He is hypothetically a higher being with the power to do anything. Not that this is proven. Also not documented by something other than the bible. I wonder if he can change the past...how about time rips? >_>

to many unanswered questions

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HUBBY of DUBBY

My mistake. I misinterpreted your intent.

Although I feel like pointing out that the heads of the church probably told them to believe that first.



Actually, it's curious that you mention 'proof.' There are two main points I'd like to point out.

A) Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a God. What it CAN disprove or prove is whether or not history happened as it was put down word for word in Genesis, but that relies on a literal interpretation of it, which is not necessarily the correct one. It's not necessarily incorrect either, tho.

I'm referring to the creation mythos, obviously.

Which leaves us at an impasse, but that just means people are free to believe what they want to believe. It's really pretty much a 50/50 split.

B) Although I haven't personally verified it(so this could be an invalid point), supposedly, Roman records proved that Jesus was born, that Herod attempted to kill Jesus via mass infanticide, that Jesus was crucified, that his body disappeared from the tomb three days after he was buried, that guards had indeed been posted, and that his apostles had fled when he died and returned later to preach the Gospel.

Now, the main point as it pertains to Christianity is this: What would make 11 people(Judas died) who fled and denied all knowledge of Jesus, return and preach his story, KNOWING that they were going to be martyred for their message? Might just be me, but it seems like they had a very compelling reason.



Lawl, scientology.



A possibility amongst possibilities. Dead Sea scrolls prove that the Old Testament hasn't been changed through the years, Roman records prove Jesus existed. All that's left is faith in God...which, indeed, is quite a leap to make, but it's no help to YOUR case, as your scenario is no better than mine.



Our lives ARE pointless. There's no grand meaning in life, and it's meaningless to search for one. What is, is. That's all.

As for all else...it presumes too much, so I'm assuming it's just your view on religion.



That's because of the believe in the concept of a 'soul' that we have and animals don't, and probably the bit in the Bible about 'God created us in his own image.' The Darwinian tenets don't apply to the creation of that particular passage, since it outdated Darwin by millenia, so I assume you mean 'people who choose to believe we are exempt from Darwinian evolution.'

Incidentally, evolution IS still a theory, albeit a likely one(insofar as micro-evolution).



I can see where you're coming from, and your POINT isn't incorrect(although again, it's only a possibility out of possibilities), but your connection is. To do that requires putting us on the same level as God. That is to say, that the human race, if not an individual human, is all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing, and infinite. God isn't limited by time. He MADE time. We are, and we feel it painfully every day.



The Bible was written at a time when a logical basis wasn't needed. The Bible actually stripped away the 'deity' from natural phenomena, providing the need for a logical basis. Ironic, isn't it?

Evidence? What evidence do you have that our current science is the correct one? If you have a near infinite amount of choices, and each time you pick a choice, you find out it's wrong, would you have any confidence in saying 'this one is the right choice, I know it is!'?



It could be. I won't be so stupid as to discount the possibility.



According to you.



Again, you're presuming too much. 'Logic?' If a God isn't logical, neither is it illogical, and nothing can prove OR disprove him. Regardless of how much 'logic' your science has, it really doesn't make a difference. Why does evolution matter at all? We were created by God. Why does it matter how we were created?

Of course, that's just me. I don't necessarily reflect the views of a group.

Ah well. It was an interesting rant, and I can see where you're coming from, though. I've actually thought about becoming an atheist myself, but. Eh.



Why would mass energy be a simpler explanation? I'm curious.



Looking from an efficiency based standpoint, I can't really deny any of your points.



A) The Bible tells us to engage in fellowship with our fellow believers, so we don't go astray or somesuch. Going alone is an easy way to misinterpret the Bible without an alternate viewpoint to be presented by someone familiar with it.

B) Priests/pastors/etc. are there to guide and teach, not to indoctrinate(technically, indoctrinate is the right word, but I use it in the negative due to the connotations of it :\). Would you tell everybody who wants to know about evolution to just read Darwin's 'Origin of Species?' Of course, a lot of people simply take what their pastor says as truth, and I do agree that people need to think for themselves. A preacher isn't infallible, and just the fact that there's conflict within the church via denomination should show that you can still come to your viewpoint, so long as it doesn't go against the basic tenets.

I dunno, I think you're misunderstanding how a church functions. :\ But that's fine, I suppose.

what i want to know is this: if god wants happiness and no sin and stuff like that, then why are wars started over religions? religion almost always seems to be the root problem in conflicts. take the Crusades for example. it clearly says in the ten commandments not to commit murder, and i'm pretty sure that in other religions murder isn't something to celebrate either, so why did they kill in the name of god? the ten commandments doesn't say "do not commit murder unless they don't believe in god," so why?

sorry about pushing this question on christians, but i used to be one and this is one of the things i've never been able to get an answer for.

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lawl. its cause people are stupid. plus i never heard of a Christian that follows all ten of the commandments. For example MOST denominations automatically break one of them. Which of course i find funny. That includes i think all the biblical advocates in this thread. Sabbath anyone? lol

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HUBBY of DUBBY

From what I learned from a philosophy class, the concept of "God" revolves around the idea of a being that has several major characteristics: 1) God is omniscient, or all knowing; 2) God is omnipotent, or capable of doing anything logically possible; 3) God is the creator of the universe; and 4) God is omni-benevolent, or as good as is possible. Philosophers and whoever have argued this topic since the origins of philosophy, yet no one can be certain either of anything. People make up logical arguments, albeit somewhat confusing and really boring to read, that can convince people of being atheist or a firm believer of god.

Also, don't depend on the bible as an accurate depiction of what God is. As a person who went through 13 years of catholic schooling, I know that the bible is just a collection of selected readings chosen for essentially the purpose of making God look good. There are some Gospels never released to the public, such as the gospel according to Mary Magdalene, who is historically one of the most important follower of Jesus as well as being female. Honestly, if you read and thought about some of the famous passages and stories in the bible you would notice that there's a difference in the way God is portrayed in the Hebrew scriptures (aka the Old Testament) and the New testament. Old testament: God only cares about his people, whoever they happen to be at the time. Want proof: ten plagues in egypt and Moses: what kind of omnibenevolent God sends an angel of death to kill every first born son of every non-jewish person or those unfortunate enough to not paint their door in sheep's blood. That's seriously messed up. Oh, and Moses and those Jews who escaped slavery spend 40 years wandering the desert until they reach their promised Holy Land. Moses died before even making it. Noah's arc: only humans saved are noah and his family. Every other single human being has been deemed expendable by God. Not to mention all of the unfortunate animals not selected to hitch a ride on noah's arc.

And the New Testament? Here's the message: believing in god gets you into heaven. Oh, and trying to lead a good life might help too. And one more thing, the second coming of the messiah means the end of the world (something like that).

Notice any difference between old and new?

If you read the book "The Last templar," then this might be old news for you but here it is: Christianity is not the only frickin religion that believes in God. Islam and Judaism essentially believe in God as well. The only difference in the three religions are the prophets that they believe are God's messengers. And what has happened historically between these three religions that follow the same God: they kill each other. You have christians and muslims killing each other in Jerusalem for property rightspf "holy ground". Christian nazi's were killing other christian catholics as well as jews.you have the KKK using christianity as justification for slavery and the killing of anyone, christian or otherwise.

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"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
- Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain

actually, even tho most religions say "no" to killing, they put it in a no "murdering" sorta way, and if u analize a bit youll realize that "no kill"="do not murder your friend".
basically god allows wars. for example, in the bible, which is the base for the christian and jewish religions (and a little for the muslim religion), "god" was the one who promised the people a place to live, but the promised place was already occupied by other nations, so he sent them to war against them.
there r also special rules for wars. there is a "must war" and "optional war". in the "must war" u protect your country against an outsider attack, and all people must participate. in the "optional war" it is your country the one attacking, and you do not have to participate.
and in the muslim religion there is also the thing called "sacred war" which commands the muslim to turn all humans into muslim (in order of course, to save them from the end of the world).

basically in most major religions god commands war, not forbid it.

*analize made by an atheist teenager who was forced to study bible from grade 2, bible analize from grade 7,also hebrew law and muslim history for one year in grade 9. all these teachings currupted her*

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Thats an easy answer. people tend to want to make themselves rightous and by doing so, they bend the words inside the bible. Lets take the slavery in America that occured couple of hundreds years ago. Clearly the bible says, in one form or another "treat your neighbors as you do yourself", but to counter this, the slave owners start calling slaves property. So is it sinful to murder and abuse your property...?In the end, all its boils down is how people interpet those words inside the book. For all it matter, they can murder all they want and still call it a honorable killing becuase the victim is an "enemy of god".

wth... isn't god supposed to be merciful...? commanding war because people don't believe in you doesnt sound very merciful to me.. why be mysterious and hide your existence if you want people to believe in you? and why damn them to hell if you give them no hardcore proof that you truly exist?

this is why i chose to live without religion; too many questions, less stress, more living my life without restrictions, and more time to sleep in on sundays

nd sorry for all the questions XP

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my point exactly, glad someone sees the logic, or the lack of it♥


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the best security guard, EVER.