Personal Opinion on Religion (Atheist View)

[hiks89]

britthill your an idiot... there i said it.if you believe in a light that created the universe youre a fukin retard (no offence) y does he kill fukin african people for no fukin reason yet he lets americans and white people thrive .if there was a god then he should at least come and tell us he exist

God allows suffering because mankind choice to disobey Him. God loves everyone and therefore He gives us a choice whether to accept Him or deny Him. I'm not going to go into a huge spiel about this, but if you want the answers to those questions, go to the first book of the Bible (Genisis). God allows bad things to happen because we have asked Him to step out of our lives and just leave us alone. Therefore, He has stepped out. Why should we tell Him to back off and then when bad things happen, ask Him to help us? (You probably figured it out, but I'm a Christian)

 

[WendelI]

Bleh, God, church, bibles, people. Guys, this is disappointing!

You know why? well look at it this way: you are feeding it, that's right. God, religion, bibles, all that stuff is as real and as meaningful as you make it out to be. If you think that the whole idea is stupid, meaningless and a total waste of time then go right ahead. that means god is not real. but in other people who believe in these things, these systems of reward and sacrifice. well they rule their lives, are they dangerous? well Extremists but those you cant pin to an specific idea, extremist exist in all systems and networks. but the rest of them, they are not dangerous, these wastes of time as you call them, keep them form making dumpster babies, drinking, doing drugs and allot more approachable.

As a gay man well, i have gotten allot of battery from a religious crowd, their lack of sense and understanding use to hurt me. but now that I think of it this way, well they dont seem as bad. they never tried to hurt me, well physically that is. they just say "your gonna end up in hell, let us help you". Let us help you. you get it? most really religious people don't mean much harm, they just want to show other people their ways. well, im speaking catholics here i was born in the dominican republic and lived there for a long time so most of my religious expusure was like this. I dont have much experience with islamics or jewish people so if you belive this is an ignorant speech well, it might just be .

PS: I'm an athiest. don think i left that clear lol

 

[Giovanto]

Okay...

Every day. EVERY DAY there is some thread by some Atheist very LOUDLY voicing his or her opinion whether you agree its loud or not. Trust me, its loud.

I find it very ironic how Atheists whine about how "Oh you Bible Thumper's push your Religion onto us" at the very mention of someone being Religious and yet I come here to regularly find some thread that's at least semi-anti-Religion and is written by some Atheist.

Would you like some advice to increase your credibility? If you want us to stop talking about our Religion, then stop talking about your lack of Religion. Your no better then we ever could be.

Don't take this the wrong way, your post is very calm but it also seems like a token post if you know what I mean. Its unnecessary just like most Religion related threads occurring on the Escapist. Please let it end.

 

[hiks89]

wtf cuddly tomato u fukin retard there is a reason for the moon and the sun and the water and food

1. That god moves in mysterious and incomprehensible ways.
or
2. That we were given free will by god and that we have to deal with the consequences.

Now isnt that a load of crap. If god gave us free will and saw us screw up time after time and seeing us constantly trying to exterminate one another why not get rid of that freedom? and if this is all part of his great master plan what kind of sick, twisted, sociopathic god are we worshiping and why?

When eagles kick their young out of the nest and watch them attempt to fly are they doing wrong?

When your parents asked you to leave your house was it because they didn't love you anymore and were sociopathic?

actually yes not really of course I just think that if god wants us all to hate and kill one another why not just save us the trouble and wipe us out with his ominipotent I can kill everything in the cosmos without even waving my hand powers? Or at least less us all die in a semi-interesting way like let us get invaded by aliens or zombies attack or something.

Or alternatively, give humans a world to live in that contains everything they need. Food, water, shelter, love, the sun, the moon the stars...

...if humans then fuck it up for themselves then do we really have a right to go running to god screaming about his non-existence if he doesn't just show and clean up the mess we made ourselves? Very bad reason to not believe in God.

 

[Northpaw]

My understanding is that religion originated from dreams.

My theory is that it came from our tendency to anthropomorphizing things, which is a twelve dollar word meaning "assigning human traits to inhuman things"

Actually that's called personification.

Religion is an answer to why we are here, not how. Leave it at that. Someone believes something you can't, leave them to it.

That's the way I feel too. I do believe in God and I know there are some crazy religious people out there that structure their entire life and beliefs around God and the Bible, but that's (in my opinion) being narrow minded. I think the best thing we all can do is be as open minded as possible no matter what our belief system is. Which is why I get so mad when people start forcing their beliefs on others, religious or not.

This might come off the wrong way, but in itself there's nothing wrong with being narrow-minded. Without trying to go into a lengthy response here, I want to mention a few things your post made me think of.

1. You seem to think it's a bad thing to be narrow-minded. (Let me know if I'm wrong, as I'm making an assumption here.)

Let me start by saying that in a world with perfect people, there is no opinion or preference or misunderstanding, there is only truth. Perfection is impartial, but remains all inclusive of good things. Therefore, being narrow-minded is in one sense a good thing, as long as you actually know the truth. Since people are fallible, we cannot know the truth in its entirety, but we can still have a good idea.

2. To call anything bad, there must be an objective standard, or else the meaning is nonexistent.

I've come to believe that nothing is subjective, and the only reason anyone believes in subjectivity is because of our own fallibility. Think about it. Truth is absolute and objective. Truth can be relative, meaning the context of the situation is taken into account, but it is still consistent with an absolute. Subjective truth, however, does not exist, because truth is not defined by people.

3. Objective truth therefore applies to even abstract things, such as law and beauty

I'll take the example of law, since it's simpler. The premise of judicial law is not that a guilty person committed what someone thinks is a crime, but that a guilty person committed a crime (beyond a reasonable doubt of course, but you get the idea). Subjective law does not work, because any moron could say it's not only permissible, but good to indiscriminately disembowel people. I'm using a hyperbolic example, but it gets the point across, and I think everybody here will agree with me that disemboweling random people (or anyone, really) is not only not permissible, but vile. The law therefore requires an objective standard. Some might say there is no law, but anybody being disemboweled is going to feel some form of violation or injustice, which I think handily defeats that argument.

So I guess what I'm trying to get at is (assuming I didn't overanalyze your statement), by what standard do you think being narrow-minded is a bad thing?

 

[WendelI]

wtf cuddly tomato u fukin retard there is a reason for the moon and the sun and the water and food

1. That god moves in mysterious and incomprehensible ways.
or
2. That we were given free will by god and that we have to deal with the consequences.

Now isnt that a load of crap. If god gave us free will and saw us screw up time after time and seeing us constantly trying to exterminate one another why not get rid of that freedom? and if this is all part of his great master plan what kind of sick, twisted, sociopathic god are we worshiping and why?

When eagles kick their young out of the nest and watch them attempt to fly are they doing wrong?

When your parents asked you to leave your house was it because they didn't love you anymore and were sociopathic?

actually yes not really of course I just think that if god wants us all to hate and kill one another why not just save us the trouble and wipe us out with his ominipotent I can kill everything in the cosmos without even waving my hand powers? Or at least less us all die in a semi-interesting way like let us get invaded by aliens or zombies attack or something.

Or alternatively, give humans a world to live in that contains everything they need. Food, water, shelter, love, the sun, the moon the stars...

...if humans then fuck it up for themselves then do we really have a right to go running to god screaming about his non-existence if he doesn't just show and clean up the mess we made ourselves? Very bad reason to not believe in God.

Either that or we are just a globe snow globe here that is shaken down day in and day out just to give our all powerful lord a couple of giggles.

reason why I lost faith is humanity, we want it all to end, fast soon and swiftly without pain. but you and I know it wont be this way

If the bible is in the know about gods plans then it will be a slow and painful death by "sky of fire" i bleive. and if science is in then we will all die by a solar collapse. causing the oxygen in the atmosphere of the earth to "you guessed it" light on fire. or global warming, its all the same, "trial by fire" i suppose.

 

[Berithil]

Ok, fine. I'm an idiot. But you cussing me out won't be able to change what I believe in. This is what I believe and no one can convince me otherwise

 

[WendelI]

Ok, fine. I'm an idiot. But you cussing me out won't be able to change what I believe in. This is what I believe and no one can convince me otherwise

Exactly what i am talking about. Carry on sir. If what you worship is a good begin and his good values are ending in you then well. There is absolutely no reason to have these types of discussions. if not then, well are you a "good" person?

 

[hiks89]

u r a f.u.k.i.n mental case. i tried putting that as simple as i could seeing that u live i a cellar eating flies. i mean how can you belive in a fukin light that has a fukin plan for us all. how about this for a plan u are born becaus sum prick in a fukin dress told your parents that they cant use condoms so you hav like 20 siblings. you live in a fukin hut made of dirt you have like 1 piece of bread a fort night then u run out of bread and starve to death... great fukin plan god i wish i could think up somthing like tha wow what a beautiful life

I haven't read through all six pages of this stuff, so hopefully I won't only say things that have already been said.

I guess first and foremost, the loving God argument. This is a tricky one that I don't believe anybody fully understands. My belief is God created everything and has a plan for everything (fate) that still allows for choice (free will).

Before anybody goes off to tell me this is a contradiction, it's not. If there's a snake in a glass case, and I put a mouse in there, everybody knows what will happen. The snake, whether immediately or when it gets hungry, will eat that mouse. By manipulating the situation (using a plan) but allowing the snake to choose what to do (not ramming the mouse down its throat) there exists both a certain fate and free will. I believe God manipulates circumstances so that we will react in a very exact way because he knows our hearts and minds completely. People will argue that this isn't total freedom, and they're right, but neither is it a total lack of freedom. Thus, both exist in a balance.

It's very confusing when you think of the enormity of it (whether you believe it or not) and I don't claim to understand everything. I don't know exactly why God allows things such as rape and murder to happen, but it's important to remember that God only allows it and certainly does not want it. Since God also allows us to be good to one another, it is therefore up to us to how we act. It's easy to fall into a trap of why there is such suffering caused by people, without also looking at how God uses other people for good. And when I say God uses people for good, this is most certainly not exclusive to people who believe in God, Christian or otherwise. (However, doing good works does not make somebody saved. I'll elaborate shortly.)

By giving people the choice to do good or bad, God is basically the same as a parent. Parents will only harm children by sheltering them too much, because then the child will not learn or otherwise grow as a person properly.

God is not only loving, but also just, which means that people have to be held accountable for laws broken. Any law broken is a choice made for one to separate himself from God. So ultimately, people choose to separate themselves from God. (And that's what hell is, an eternity separated from God.) Since breaking any one law at any time during life make somebody a sinner (sin in Greek meaning "missing the mark" like in archery, meaning anything short of perfection or goodness, basically). God knew that people would screw up, and the law was in place to let people know how they fell short. The law never saved anybody, it was faith.

Romans 4: 1-3

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

The short version is that God planned to save all nations through the descendants of Abraham, the Jews, but at any time any other person could have faith in God and be saved. As an example: Rahab, a prostitute living in Jericho, showed a faith in God and hid Jewish spies from the king of Jericho. She is a direct ancestor of Jesus, though she was not a Jew herself.

Now then, since the Jews failed miserably in sharing God with other nations, God sent Jesus so that through him all nations might know God, giving the Holy Spirit freely to anyone who accepted it through baptism.

This is a very short version and contextually there's much more to it than this, but this explains what I believe spiritually and historically. I hope this helps give people an understanding. I'm willing to answer any comments or questions as well.

Wait, is this the Northpaw from the LotRO forums who I think started that .abc music thread and who I got some really great songs from?

 

[Northpaw]

u r a f.u.k.i.n mental case. i tried putting that as simple as i could seeing that u live i a cellar eating flies. i mean how can you belive in a fukin light that has a fukin plan for us all. how about this for a plan u are born becaus sum prick in a fukin dress told your parents that they cant use condoms so you hav like 20 siblings. you live in a fukin hut made of dirt you have like 1 piece of bread a fort night then u run out of bread and starve to death... great fukin plan god i wish i could think up somthing like tha wow what a beautiful life

Nice meeting you too.

 

[the1ringer]

u r a f.u.k.i.n mental case. i tried putting that as simple as i could seeing that u live i a cellar eating flies. i mean how can you belive in a fukin light that has a fukin plan for us all. how about this for a plan u are born becaus sum prick in a fukin dress told your parents that they cant use condoms so you hav like 20 siblings. you live in a fukin hut made of dirt you have like 1 piece of bread a fort night then u run out of bread and starve to death... great fukin plan god i wish i could think up somthing like tha wow what a beautiful life

Nice meeting you too.

My congratulations on a marvelous response.

 

[traceur_]

Oh, and it's a great way to get a Hot Topic badge.

definitely, the first thread I made was a religion thread and I got hot topic.

 

[Berithil]

u r a f.u.k.i.n mental case. i tried putting that as simple as i could seeing that u live i a cellar eating flies. i mean how can you belive in a fukin light that has a fukin plan for us all. how about this for a plan u are born becaus sum prick in a fukin dress told your parents that they cant use condoms so you hav like 20 siblings. you live in a fukin hut made of dirt you have like 1 piece of bread a fort night then u run out of bread and starve to death... great fukin plan god i wish i could think up somthing like tha wow what a beautiful life

I'm surprised you haven't been given a warning from the mods about flaming people
But seriously, please stop calling christians stupid. You have no reason to do that. Just because we don't share the same religious views as you does not give you the right to bash on people about their faith. It's people like you that make me stay away from religious threads.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Let them potter about, but keep them the hell away from government. We're grateful the beautiful architecture, but don't interfere in anything important with your 'morality'.
Secularism=win

 

[NubletInc]

I see religion as an escape from the question why, Why do bad things happen? Why are things as they are? The easiest answer is to believe you have no say in the matter, by believing in the higher powers to try to change things some could say you are hiding from the responsibility of your actions or lack of action. Waiting for something to come to you by asking an obscure identity that there is no proof exists, or does anything if it does for something rather than going out of way to make these things happen, sometimes people need something to support their existence or belief therefore the things they can't control will be still thought of as controlled. I ask if god is almighty why is there suffering, if god is all loving, why is there hate, if god accepts us for who we are why is there intolerence.

I only decided to post this to see reactions from the people on this site, if you see me as wrong say so and why, if I am wrong merely because I am, then please do not post as nothing will be gained by a view with no basis, I personally am a half hearted atheist I believe in no all powerful higher power but instead on human action, many believe that one is insignificant and can't change anything but that thought is an excuse to sit back and go with the flow rather than stand for your own reasons, and if everyone thought that one is insignificant than would that not mean that all would be insignificant as a whole as well.


Feel free to post your views as well this is a post i leave open to all views, if you wish to believe on faith alone, to each their own, personally faith aint my thing. By the way I'm a 16 year old high school (almost drop out) Who lives a good life without too many misfortunes, I'm middle class, with good friends and a loving family, My family on my fathers side is Jewish I guess (my dads mom), and my mother is agnostic.

Jesus fucking christ, how has something this half-baked reached six pages. Shame on you. Shame on all of you.

Hey someone finally fucking goes off and flames me for half baked I'm 16 if my view on religion was perfect or even relatively GOOD i would be scared for my self and my sanity. And hey you posted so grats you added fuel to the fire, and its 8 pages now.

 

[NubletInc]

Now I'm accepting of other peoples beliefs, but give me the opportunity and I'll rip into religion (Christianity in particular) like there is no tomorrow. The Catholic Church and the Bible are about as relevant and useful as a sliding door on a submarine. All that religion has ever managed to do in the last 2000 years is create Wars and prejudices (about homosexuals, women and other religions) and in general Fuck over the entire world.

Wait a minute!
How can you start that whole tirade with 'I'm accepting of other peoples beliefs'?
That's like a KKK member saying 'Now I don't care what color of skin you have, but given the opportunity I'd love to kill some minorities (black people in particular) like there is no tomorrow.'

That's not 'accepting' at all!
And your generalizations that religions have only created wars and prejudices is laughably ignorant. Especially since you have an obvious and blatant prejudice against religion (Christianity in particular), and you have no religion!

And then your idea that religion has screwed over the whole world is also hilarious. If anyone screwed over the world, it's...wait for it...people. Yup! People screwed over the entire world, if it is indeed entirely screwed up. Did people do terrible things in the name of religion? Sure they did! But if religion wasn't there, they'd do it for other reasons, and you'd hate that right now.

Blaming religion for the world's woes is just as sensationalistic as blaming video games for gun violence.

Yeesh! Seems like it's cool to be anti-theist these days and spout all the same, tired crap that Dawkins and Hitchens writes down with the eloquence of a spider monkey having a seizure.

You know what I realized if you picked through these comments they would all basically say that Blah-blah is "only" blah-blahing its cuz when a human mentions smething the natural way to describe something you dont like is to point out its flaws, you may not mean to but subconsciously you want to make people see it your way therefore you subconsciously omit the +s and only mention -s.

 

[NubletInc]

Nothin' like a religion thread to get that Hot Topic badge in no time.

And it did too YAY THANK YOU ALL!!!

 

[NubletInc]

once again you're arguing and not answering the question, no one said religious people can't respond but since this is a thread about the atheist view of religion, the views of religious people are hardly relevant in this discussion. As for how I would react in the situations you suggested, I would react in exactly the same way, if it was the theists view of atheism I wouldn't post anything since my atheism would make my post irrelevant. Once again no one was told to not respond.

1. The op never asked a question.

2. The op never stated this was about the atheist view of religion, he stated it was his personal view of religion. In fact he specifically stated he was open to all views, so the views of religious people are "relevant".

3. A bunch of people (who are not atheists) come in and make a few ignorant and insulting posts about religion, and you are asking religious people to just sit there and take it?!

dude the question is what your personal opinion of religion is, and read the damn title, see in brackets where it says (atheist view) yeh that means it is the atheist personal opinion of religion, and for your third point, why do you care? If you think they are wrong why should you give a shit about what they think. If you want to post your opinion just do it and stop arguing with other people's opinions.

also man, I don't think we'll ever agree so how about we just agree to disagree, so truce?

*extends hand*

yo when i said atheist it meant that MY PERSONAL VIEw is based off my atheism, I have to agree with cuddly tomatoes arguement but i see how it would be easy to mistake it.

 

[rokema]

Don't diss my religion 0.o

I won't say your god doesn't exist,
As long as you don't say my god isn't a flying spaghetti monster.

 

[NubletInc]

Everyone wants to feel that their universe is in some sort of control. I say, when you get right down to it, we're all the same no matter what our beliefs.

Ah, but some that I have met do not wish this. There are some who wish for there to be no controlling power so they can do whatever they want whenever they want with no guilt or eternal consequences attached. Christianity is the most uncomfortable and yet comforting religion I know of. We know there is a God who knows more about us than we do. He watches everyone's every move. For a sinner (and I think we all, if we are honest, are sinners), a perfectly Holy and Just God who watches your every move is a very disturbing and uncomfortable thing! He even knows sins you've committed when you didn't know it, and he always knew it.

To those that say God's omnipotence or any other virtue is too hard to comprehend: That's how I would expect it to be! In order for us to comprehend an infinite God we ourselves would need to be, I think, infinite! We know from our personal experiences that it is impossibly hard to understand things you have never done seen or been apart of.

I agree with Baby_Tea that nonsense is still nonsense, that is why we can have any logical argument whatsoever. If God created us with no sense of order or logic life as we know it would be impossible.

To quote C.S. Lewis, "Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with [God]. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on."

From what I see from this thread most issues seem to have to do with an extremely elevated view of man and an extremely limited view of God. This is perfectly understandable. We, in our sin, desire to elevate ourselves above God, everyone does it. We always think of our glory as more important than God's. We can only get a glimpse of each of His attributes in this life, so we seek to put a limit on Him because we are creatures ashamed of our open rebellion before a Righteous Wrathful, and Just God.

Ah for fuck sake, I began reading your post expecting you to be an objective person but now it's obvious you're exactly the same kind of person I was originally going to say in my post that I turn my hostility towards. Unfortunate.

'We know there is a God who knows more about us than we do.'

^ That ^ pretty much sums up my problem. No, we don't know anything. You think you know there is a God. Please keep that to yourself or anyone who believes in the same God. Don't tell me I'm a sinner and that your God is mine please. I haven't started going on about evolution to anybody, so don't start that shite. I don't want a controlling power because my life is mine. How can you not see how incredibly arrogant it is to say that just because I don't believe in your God I live a consequentless and guilt-free life? I'll spare you any further retaliation, which may suprise you because, of course, godless heathens have no morals, do they?

I never said you were any of those things. I said I know some who are. I did not mean to say what you think I said. I am sorry, I will correct my post. Thank you for pointing this out, that's why I came here.

I do not believe that you have no morals. In Scripture we read that all who have not heard the Gospel or the Law will be judged according to the Law which God has placed on their hearts: their conscience.

May I ask how you know that your life is your own?

May I ask how yours isn't if you were to suddenly jump from a bridge or turn a gun on yourself for no reason at all, would god let you live although it isn't your time? Can you not choose your actions based on your personality or experiences one could try to give an estimation of reactions to situations therefore believed to be natural and unavoidable but can you not choose your own actions, then real with consequences of them?