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There was a funny anecdote that floated around my community several years ago.
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Jesus will save you.” Well, many of the kids went to the community church and they often heard that expression. But they changed that expression to: “Jesus won’t save you, but Ron will.”
Who is Ron?
Ron is the caretaker, handyman, engineer and protector of the community. He repairs the pool, does the painting, and makes sure the pool water is the right ph balance. He knows about chemistry, mechanics, engineering and can fix about anything. He breaks up fights and settles arguments. He’s a helpful man but he won’t put up with any bullshit, either. He’s got a rough side too and he’ll step in if something doesn’t look right. He's barrel-chested and strong. He’s not someone you’d want to fight, because he’d definitely win. He’s exactly the kind of man you’d want as a neighbor. He’ll get scrappy if required and he is an honest man, too.
“Jesus won’t save you, but Ron will” pretty much says everything I think about religion.
Isaac Asimov expresses perfectly what I’ve been meaning to say for years:
"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time."
When someone asks me what religion I am, I now answer, “the unknown”.
I usually attempt to steer clear of labels because labels create generalized misconceptions. But if I had to say a concrete answer, I would say that I am an atheist. It’s taken me my entire life to have enough confidence to say that since I was raised in an intentional Christian community and I am literally surrounded by Christians everywhere I go. They tend to think quite poorly of atheists. They are rather aggressive when it comes to trying to convert others and in my travels around the world, Christians, were the ones who were always trying to convert me. I forgive them, though.
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Even though I was raised in a Christian community my parents made the decision to let us decide for ourselves what religion we liked best.
For this reason, I always had an open mind and I was encouraged to explore my natural curiosity as a child. They never forced me to go to church, and even though the Christian adults and children in my community repeatedly told me that I was “going to go to hell,” my parents loved me unconditionally and supported my various paths in life, placing no demands on me to decide on a religion.
My mother was a rebel in many ways and in her mid thirties, she abandoned the RLDS religion that had been forced upon her as a child. She began questioning her beliefs and came to the conclusion that much of what she had been taught was not based in reality and it was definitely not useful to her life. It was at this time that she decided to let us be free to decide our own religious path.
Here are the main benefits of being an atheist as experienced in my life so far:
I don’t judge people based on their religious affiliation.
By me not being attached to one particular religion, I am quite tolerant of others’ religious choices. Wars are started because of religious intolerance. If there were more atheists, such wars wouldn’t likely exist because of religious differences. They would likely exist for different reasons, but religion wouldn’t be one of them.
I have friends who are Mormon, Muslim, Catholic, Mennonite, Sikh, Buddhist, Redneck, Nihilist, etc. As long as my friends respect my decision to remain atheist and don’t try to convert me, we remain friends. I have had a few of my Christian friends try repeatedly to convert me, and that’s when I draw a line in the sand. Basically, it comes down to respect. If they respect me as a friend, they don’t use their energy trying to convert me to their religion. If they do try to convert me, usually, our friendship becomes an acquaintanceship. I am tolerant of them, but many are not tolerant of me. Interestingly, I only have had this problem with Christians. That’s probably because they are more numerous where I am. Being an atheist has allowed me to get to know people of all different kinds of faiths and opened my eyes to the similarities that exist among different people.
Being an atheist has allowed me to focus on taking responsibility for my own actions in life and improve the way I live and treat others.
Bjork says it most eloquently,
“If I get into trouble, there’s no God or Allah to sort me out. I have to do it myself."
Many religious people use their religion as a way to avoid answering the really difficult questions in life. Many religions are used in the same way drugs are used: to mask pain, avoid reality, induce docility and shirk personal responsibility.
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Most adults are uncomfortable with the unknown and simply don’t make it a priority to investigate unknown things in life. Most adults, especially those in industrialized societies are too short of time and are over-stressed. I know because I used to be one of them. Working in survival mode doesn’t allow much time for thinking, questioning and reasoning.
I don’t believe in any afterlife, and so I live life as if this is all I have.
I have to make the most of it. I have to be truthful, even if people don’t want to hear it. Even if I don’t care to hear it. My conscience is greater than the forces that wish me to be quiet. I will never stop trying to uncover the unknown and I will never stop seeking out the “shapes of the happiness no one escapes.”
Starting from childhood, I was allowed to exercise my natural curiosity to peel back the layers of unknown worlds.
Marie Curie perhaps says it best:
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
I was never indoctrinated with any religious system, therefore I was able to cultivate my natural curiosity at a young age without any fear of a heavy-handed “God”.
By allowing a child to discover and question things in the world without fear, critical thinking skills develop naturally. This also allows a child to become more autonomous and more resistant to brainwashing and other forms of manipulation. This enables a child to seek truth independently and to hold everyone up to the same light, including authority figures.
When parents feed their children religious beliefs, they are actually doing them a disservice in two distinct ways:
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- They are giving them answers (usually incorrect ones) instead of letting them discover them on their own.
- They are programming their minds with information that will most likely be in need of de-programming at a later date.
It’s best not to program children with your religious beliefs, but rather let them sort it all out for themselves. They will end up doing this later on as adults anyway, so why bother filling them with religious dogma that will need to be cleaned out later anyway? It makes very little sense.
This does not mean that children should not be given guidance. On the contrary, the best thing a parent can do is become an example of how to live in a way that is not harmful to others but is respectful to oneself. I have noticed as a parent that my child will often just model behaviors. If I sit down and decide to paint, it will not be long before my child sits down to paint, too. If I spend every waking moment on my iPhone, my child will also do the same.
Being a parent is the most difficult thing a person could ever decide to do because a mirror of ourselves is there to remind us of our weaknesses, shortcomings and issues.
But that same mirror also reminds us how to love, be nice and give unconditionally without greed. I have my issues, my struggles that my child reminds me of. But I think my child does make me more aware of the purpose of life. It is up to me, though, to act upon the feedback of the mirror.
Final Thoughts
If every person on the planet had been forced to become a devout, docile follower of an existing religion, then the main religions of the world would not even exist. To create something new that has never existed before, one must reject much of what one has been taught and carve out a brand-new path based on independent thought and experience.
Go out and read all the religious texts if you must. But then reject most of it, keep what makes sense and create a new religion if you must have some kind of juju beans in your pocket. But I don’t advise anyone to blindly follow a pre-existing dogma that was created by someone else thousands of years ago.
Creating is way more fun than following.
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Stephen Hawking:
“Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation.”
Quotes came from: http://www.michaelnugent.com/best/famous-atheists/
This post was not written by AI. It was human-created on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016.
I think most people never even question why they have the religious beliefs they do. Then they just stick to them because it is easier to stay that way and not think about the important questions relating to spirituality.
Many others just stick to their beliefs out of fear and because they just want to fit in.
I'm like you. I don't like people trying to push their religion on me or trying to "save" me. I find it to be highly arrogant and patronising as if the other party is saying that they know what is best for you and that somehow you are wrong.
I suspect many people just say they are one religion or another to escape these kind of evangelists who see it as their mission to force their beliefs on everyone else.
I see organised religion as a mechanism of political and psychological control. It was created by people to manipulate other people. The world would be better off without formal religions.
What is wrong with having your own individual and private beliefs? A lot of the most "religious" and pious people I have met have actually been some of the worst people I have encountered.
They seem to revel in showing others how religious they are yet have absolutely no concept of spirituality. Worse still they seem to be more materialistic than the average person. Their "religiosity" is a function of their own personal narcissism and egocentric nature.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has come across these sorts of people and frankly I can't stand them.
I agree. I left out some of the more heinous things that have been done to me by Christians. I was publicly humiliated in front of a large group of people, when the Christians pointed out the fact that my dad was a sinning alcoholic. They forced me in front of this group, and told the story of how my dad was found drunk, passed out in his car, humiliating me. Then they showed us a slide show with alcoholic drinks, pointing out the "devils" and wolves in the ice cubes. I broke down in tears crying, due to the public shaming. Yes, Christians have left their mark on my psyche, that is for sure. I was like 9 years old.
That's pretty awful.
That pretty much matches up with my personal philosophy. I did Sunday school and sang hymns in school assemblies as that's what everyone did, but religion never stuck to me. I just couldn't see a need for it. I can be good without needing some reward at the end of my life. My kids have been brought up to think for themselves and are good people who care for others.
Some of the biggest evils in history were done in the name of religion, but most religious people are good. They have to accept that theirs is not the only way.
Yes, the most ironic part of all of this is that many great and well-meaning people are very religious. The religious fanatics, however, are usually mentally unstable........I live among many Christians, and they are well-meaning, in the same way that nice cats are.
You have to appreciate the irony in religion, the love and acceptance that is freely preached is totally undermined by the conflict caused by imposing these beliefs and indoctrinations upon the individuals they are attempting to "recruit" or the "non believers"
Being a Roman Catholic I cannot understand why there is so much poverty in the world and the home of my religion has its very own banking institution? Also, the Church of England is the largest land owner in the UK and there are so many homeless?!?!
Let's not get started on the abuse metered out on the innocent in the name of religion!!!
As I said earlier ironic only scratches the surface!!
Well, religion when practiced by humans is practiced very badly!
As a fellow Roman Catholic, I agree 100% with your post. There has been so much abuse and violence carried out in the name of religion.
It is psychologically liberating, no longer feeling compelled to fear invisible beings, and being allowed to consider possibilities outside of the dictats of religious scripture.
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Thanks for a good read. I am most definitely an atheist as well, and if I am wrong that's fine because whatever God proves me wrong won't care whether I believed or not.
Glad I finally read the post. I ignored it at first because I mistook 'atheist' for 'anarchist' and I've read quite enough on that subject for a while thank you very much.
Living as though there is no afterlife can be a risky proposition... If you are right great... you had some fun... but what if you are wrong?
why is it risky? I think that living with the assumption that there is an afterlife is much riskier.
Well when looking at Christianity for example... if you live your live as if there is no God, no reason for living but to have fun, and you die but you were wrong and there is a God. All of eternity would be spent in hell. So several years of fun for eternity in hell would be the tradeoff.
Conversly by believing there is a God and living accordingly, what are you giving up? If you die in this scenario and are wrong... ok so you missed out on some things in life perhaps, but is the risk worth the reward?
Im not sure how you are saying the 2nd is the bigger risk...
there are plenty of reasons to live other than just having fun, many athiest live their lives helping others where they can, the fact they do so purely because they want to is much more admirable and selfless than the person chasing the promise of entry into heaven or trying to avoid a one way trip to hell.
I'm sure there are... that wasn't really the point of the argument though. It was which way of living carries with it the bigger risk...
You make a good point about someone's motives for doing things though. The first example is the much more selfless one for sure.
Curious. Do you believe that a person that lived a good life but did not believe in God would go to hell if they were wrong? This is a question not an attack.
My personal opinion?
Well my personal belief is that what the bible says is the absolute truth... and in there it says that if someone does not know Jesus, then He will say that He doesn't know you when you come before him after you die... which means yes I believe that someone who lives a "good" life but isn't a christian would go to hell. Those are not my rules, but those are the rules I live by.
just because one is atheist does not mean that they have no empathy. Quite the opposite can be true. Some of the greatest people on earth and those who have made enormous contributions to society and humanity were atheists, Stephen Hawking, just to name one.
Where in my post did I say atheists have no empathy? That wasn't even implied. This is being twisted well beyond the original debate. The original question was which way of living carries more risk? Both you and the previous poster have gone down rabbit trails that were not even part of the original discussion...
Are you implying that atheists are morally reprehensible monsters? One can live a loving, fun and kind life as an atheist you know. Unless of course, you associate "fun" with something you consider to be shameful or deviant. In fact, I have found that many right-wing Christians seem to have more problems with temptation and sin than the rest of us. They're hypocritical, abusive racists who don't follow the teachings of Christ (to love one's fellow man). I believe there is an afterlife of some kind but I most certainly do not believe in Hell.
No, that was not being implied at all. The debate was which way of living carried with it more "risk"...
@jrcornerl, No i don't think it's more of a risk to be an athiest in fact I would not want anything to do with the god the bible tells us to adore.
A all knowing god, that gives people free will, then takes it away by demading to be worshipped in one set way only is a narcissist and a fool.
A all knowing god would know that time, culture and experiance would be vastly different, that people would choose walk very different paths, would live their lives never hearing of other paths. so wouldn't care about which path you choose if any.
And an all loving God would care more about peoples actions and deeds then what type of prayer they whisper.
If a murderer can have his sins washed away on his deathbed and walk throught the pearly gates, but a good person who simply doesn't pray cannot then it is not heaven and it is not somewhere i wish to see.
What qualifies a person as "good"? I'm not attacking... I'm asking your opinion. What is good to one person is not good to another... therefore the definition of "good" does not work unless there is an absolute standard...
@jrcornel in the terms of the discussion does it matter what anyone person myself or otherwise deems to be good? we are talking about god, and a god that would forgive a murderer who confesses on his death bed and professes to love god but would turn away someone who spent their lives giving to others, feeding the needy etc simply because they say the wrong prayer or love the wrong person does not deserve to be believed in.
The problem with your question is, that there is literally no way to be "right". Do you know how many religions there are right now? Not to mention the thousands of cults which ruled the world in the past, but have now become all but forgotten? Every single one of them claimed to be the only "right" one. Every single one preached a different truth, different rules and different punishments.
If I would like to make sure I have a good afterlife, should I be peaceful and timid, to appease the christian god, or should I drink blood out of the skulls of my enemies, so Odin will favor me at his table in Valhalla?
No religion has ever had a better claim to the "truth" than any other one. If you follow a religion, then you most likely do so, because your parents introduced you into it. This is how the fast majority of people start their religious journey. In other words, pure coincidence. If you are born in India, you come to believe in Shiva. If you are born in Denmark today, you will most likely become a christian. Had you been born in the same place a few hundred years ago, you would believe in Odin and Thor.
The only logical conclusion is, to be an atheist and live a life guided by personal morals. I try my best to be a good person. When I die and it turns out that there actually is an afterlife, a good god will honor this. Any god who would punish me for simply not knowing, which of the thousands of options is the right one to follow (and not making himself known in a way, which would eliminate such confusion), is evil. I will gladly suffer from eternal hell in that case, going down unbent and spitting in his/her/its eye.
I understand what you are saying, however, this part is not accurate at all..."No religion has ever had a better claim to the "truth" than any other one." The christian bible carries with it more evidence than almost any other... there are numerous sites you can go to proving as much. Also, it is one of the few religions that claims their central figure is actually God. Buddha never claimed to be god, Joseph Smith, etc... Christianity sets its sets itself apart in that aspect.
You thinking a 'good god' would not punish you for being "good" is just not the way things work. For the reason I stated above in previous posts... what makes someone "good"? There has to be an absolute standard that everyone can be measured against. What is 'good' for you may not be 'good' to someone else. The christian bible gives an absolute standard of "good", but because no human being can live up to that standard the only way people can experience heaven is to believe that Jesus was the son of God, that he died on the cross for everyone's sins, and that he rose again on the 3rd day... it states it very specifically in the book that has existed longer than any other while still being the closest to it's original writing thousands of years ago than any other that was written at that time.
You can live by your personal moral standards all you want, but that doesn't jive with what the christian bible teaches, and if you are ok with that, that is your absolutely your choice. God designed it that way.
The bible does not contain any evidence superior to, lets say, the Vedas, which in parts are almost 2000 years older than the bible. I could have picked any other religious text and the situation would be the same. I have acutally been to the "holy land" and seen all the sites you claim as proof. Not a single one of them actually prooves anything.
Comparing the Bible to the Vedas is a joke... "The Vedas present a multitude of gods, most of them related to natural forces such as storms, fire, and wind. As part of its mythology, Vedic texts contain multiple creation stories, most of them inconsistent with each other. Sometimes the Vedas refer to a particular god as the greatest god of all, and later another god will be regarded as the greatest god of all."
And that is just one snipit...
"The Bible is unlike any other religious book. Despite forty authors writing from three continents over nearly two thousand years, it maintains a perfect consistency of message. Its words point unerringly to Christ, whose work on the cross was ordained by God—the true author of the Bible—before the world began.
Among all the books ever written, the Bible is absolutely unique. Actually, it is not just a book—it’s 66 books. And one of its most remarkable qualities is the complete unity of the overall message despite having so many different authors writing over many centuries on hundreds of controversial subjects. Natural explanations fail to account for the supernatural character and origin of Scripture.
The Bible was written over a period of roughly 2,000 years by 40 different authors from three continents, who wrote in three different languages. These facts alone make the Bible one of a kind, but there are many more amazing details that defy natural explanation."
If you really want to compare the Bible to other religious books then you really need to study the Bible a lot more than you currently have... it truly is unlike any of the others
@jrcornel, have you actually ever read the bible? Probably not, otherwise you should know about the massive, direct contradictions within it. Here are just a few examples: http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html
BTW, which version of the bible are you talking about? Do you recognize there is even dissent among christians about what actually is the "word of god"? That catholics, anglicans etc. have different bibles? That our family bible from the 1500´s differs vastly from anything you can buy in the book shop today? Not to mention the formerly completely unknown and totally contradicting gospels archeologists found in egyptian graves...
Let me guess, you are from the US and the only education you ever got, was from other bible thumpers. You were probably made to believe the garbled nonsense of so called "scientists" who happily make up "evidence" and ignore hundreds of years of research, just to justify their childish ideas of creation. Sad. Very very sad. You have been thoroughly brainwashed.
I prefer Stephen Fry's answer to this which can be found here:
Doesn't atheism mean "god does not exist"?
consider the statement "three legged dogs do not exist". Why? because I have never seen one.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying god DOES exist. I'm just pointing out that it's not possible to prove a negative.
That's why I'm Agnostic. My meaning for agnostic is "I don't know". which means "the question is unfalsifiable and thus invalid"
Mirriam-Webster: Full Definition of atheist
: one who believes that there is no deity
Like I don't believe in Santa Claus either but I can't prove he doesn't or never existed.
I came of with a theory about why humans believe in gods. We are wired to look up to caregivers for a long time and are storytellers. We turned it into a story as adults and then into beliefs.
The Storytelling Animal
https://steemit.com/atheism-religion/@soulsistashakti/the-storytelling-animal
My 'theory' is that the climate transition between Ice Age and what we have now was SO catastropic that it caused trauma on the collective unconsciousness of mankind. Myths of 'a better time before (garden of eden)" and "the war of the gods (Ragnorok) and "the global flood (noah's ark) are the stories that were passed down over generations from that time. (it was a VERY difficult time to survive. Lots of siesmic activity due to Isostatic rebound and the sea level rose four hundred feet in a relatively short time. It might have rose VERY quickly at times if there were "melt pulses".
Possibly the "Sea People" were a people uprooted by the flood who became early day vikiings?
That's a very elaborate theory! :)
Yup..
I think it fits the evidence.
Do you agree?
Besides three legged dogs DO exist :)
exactly...you have proof in their existence. The statement "Three legged dogs don't exist" is falsifable.
Is the statement "God doesn't exist" falsifiable?
I understand what you are saying :) I'm still an atheist though.
Ok..prove to me that god does NOT exist.
How can you prove a negative?
I did not say that to further debate the issue. I'm quite content with the engagement we have had, thank you very much for the conversation. :)
Religion and belief are two different things; while one takes an offence to any other but absolutely agreeable approach, another seeks explanation no matter how hard, insane and maybe not really likable it could be.
YOur posts are always awesome @stellabelle specially the photographs you use and always have message for other. Love your posts. Keep sharing.
While on the other side of this discussion, I appreciate your very interesting and provocative post. Thanks for sharing. Maybe a parallel one from a Christian perspective would be helpful to the discussion?
It is difficult thought wen you speek your thoughts and the person next to you is looking at you as an alien!;)
this happens every day, wait, who is the alien?
I feel like I am an alien a lot .
Some people make me feel that way.
But what if they are the aliens?
That sound better
I
That pretty much nails it, as I see it. Indoctrinating a child with religious "feelings" is similar to child abuse, in my book. You brainwash them. They don't know any better until they develop critical thinking skills, if ever. The only thing I would question is the afterlife. I obviously don't think you would be in your current form, but as a different part of the whole physical world. I am still trying to get my head around that. Great article though.
I have no evidence of an afterlife, therefore I cannot waste my time thinking about whether it exists or not.
a few definitions
religion - human representations of the divine
politics - the business of the people
faith - belief without evidence
science - mutable, collective narrative that describes what's been measured
spirit - order from which life unfolds and its energy
advice to both atheists and believers: demanding attributions of divinity from others is a political act not a spiritual one; also applies to those denying divinity.
I look on religions as a kind of philosophical systems - but there's a plenty of another ones, that proposes a different features, or, as you said, you can make a compilation for yourself.
What is our reality if not a compilation of knowledge?🤔
true
Very well stated and I agree with a lot of what you said.
I like how you started with the story of Ron. When people need help, it's another person that actually provides it.
I also like all the quotes you selected for this piece. Great read, thanks!
It just points to reality. Sometimes it is the people in our community that come to our rescue. And we have been conditioned not to rely on people, that it is somehow weak. But it's not weak at all.....
I love the Story of Ron as well. I wish you the best on your healing path with all this.
I think that we all are atheists.
The one more hypocrite than the other.
Religions and civilisation make hypocrites.
The question is, how hypocrite you are!
Atheist or not as long as one has a strong moral compass in their live.
Some don't have that person/compass and find it thru attending religious services of all denominations to give them the guidance needed to be principled, ethical and honorable people.
I agree with you, don't preach me your way and I won't preach you mind but I'll have a discussion any time a friend wants to.
The problem with atheism is that they have no holidays... ;)