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Pointless Atheist Ramble |
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palak United States. Sep 02 2010 01:37. Posts 4601 | | |
Had some more downswing so I took the day off from poker. In my bordem I ended up writing out my views on atheism and figured I'd post it in the unedited rough horrible form it's in now for whoever to read if they feel.
Why I am an Atheist. By a very bored person.
Some people don't understand why I am an Atheist, so due to boredom I have decided to write out my views on humanity and religion. I was raised without any religious influence in my life as both my parents are agnostic. This led me to be skeptical of religion as I grew up. It's hard to convince someone over the age of 11 that there is an all knowing entity in the sky that oversees everything. Perhaps what made religion such a hard swallow for me while I was growing up was that people who try to convert others or are adamant about their religion enough to talk about it openly are the most devout. They rarely have any real understanding of other religions or science. This leads to a very monotonous talk where any logical question like: "Besides being "the truth" what makes your religion better than say Hinduism, Buddhism, or Taoism?", "If we are created by an all knowing creator then why are we so poorly designed?", or "If humans are the special race of the universe and all that your God cares about then why did it make the universe infinite?" are simply rebuffed by "I don't know". An insightful conversation about the nature of religion or God is seldom achievable. Plus there is the high probability of offending the other person which shuts off all constructive conversation and replaces it with awkward silence for the rest of the remaining flight (or whatever other reason I had for being next to this zealot). Due to many awkward flights I now just do the smart thing and avoid religious talks with strangers. This is somewhat upsetting since religion is such a fascinating conversation.
A few years ago there was a surge of Atheist literature led by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. The message they tried to convey is that it was time for Atheists to speak up and speak out against religion. What this movement ended up doing was making little headway into a reasonable fight against religion and instead turned many peaceful Atheists into self-righteous boneheads who violently opposed any religious thought due to what they read in a few books. Close minded "new Atheists" often did tremendous damage to the Atheist image by insulting and demeaning any religious person they spoke to. Hurting the Atheist image was hard also, we are already the most mistrusted ground in the country, even more so then Muslims. I feel this mistrust and seemingly mutual hatred between religious and atheist is due to misunderstanding of each other's views.
Religious people most often distrust Atheists with the thought of "What morals do they have if they don't believe in a God?" or "If there is no afterlife and only human punishments for your deeds then why don't you just do whatever the fuck you want and to hell with everyone else?". The latter I was actually asked my senior year of high school by a man who went on to be a NASA engineer. As an Atheist I feel compelled to answer where we (edit: we should be changed to I) get our (edit: should be changed to my) morals from.
The core to (edit: instert my personal)Atheist (edit: Atheist should be humanist) beliefs are:
1. Humanism-to do whatever possible to maximize the well being and happiness of other humans and organisms around you.
2. Tolerance-to not discriminate against a person for any reason other than if their personal actions are hurting someone. To respect others beliefs even if they are not the same as yours.
3.Empathy necessarily towards other human beings and animals if the person so chooses. Open mindedness is key for this to be successfully applied.
4.Quest for understanding- A mission to understand all questions in the universe, scientific, philosophical, or other.
These four ideals encompass all of what I believe to be the main structure of Atheist social beliefs. The 4 commandments of Atheism if you will. Atheists uphold these ideas based off an easy concept. If there is no other life then we must make the most of the life we have, further it is our responsibility as sentient creatures to ensure that future entities have the same or better life then we have. To do harm to another individuals well being or overall level of happiness is the utmost evil. All religious people will certainly agree with this line of thought as it is the same basic line of thought taught by all religions. The only difference between religious thought and Atheist thought on these principles is the punishment/reward for not obeying them. Religions belief an all knowing entity will punish you while Atheists think your punishment is that you are perceived as a horrible human being. That hopefully explains what an Atheists views on can be summed up as. Further any person can see that these views are the same as those that are taught in all major religions. It is an intuitive argument that if all the major religions came from different societies but share these common humanitarian principals perhaps it is due to these principals being naturally ingrained on humans since following them leads to the most efficient use of resources and fastest growth of civilization.
Meanwhile Atheists who hate religion do so because they have come to the conclusion that ALL people who are religious are flawed because of it. They view most religious people as intellectually inferior solely due to religion. Further they have come to the conclusion that since religion produces more harm than good it needs to be removed from humanity and that the fastest most efficient way to remove it is to argue it with whatever religious person they are having a talk to. Usually Atheists of this variety will make claims like "most wars are caused by religion" or "it's religions fault for the bad things in the world". These are very short sighted claims. Upon examination almost all wars they claim are caused by religion are in fact caused by greed of the wealthy or power wielding class. Instead of arguing wars are caused by religion it is much more constructive to argue that religion is a tool used by the power hungry to manipulate people into harming others for material gains. That religions crime towards humanity is that it limits our species potential for scientific and social growth. This view however is unfortunately very rarely argued. Another adverse trend of militant Atheists is to overlook how religion effects each person they talk to. Many times they will tell anyone they have a conversation with that they should not be religious. This is ill-advised, it is often impossible to convert someone who is religious to being an Atheist solely by a conversation in which you attack one of their most valued beliefs. It is much better to engage in logical well manned conversation which helps both sides come to respect each other's different beliefs rather than despise each other.
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| dont tap the glass...im about ready to take a fucking hammer to the aquarium | Last edit: 11/09/2010 18:41 |
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dogmeat Czech Republic. Sep 02 2010 01:40. Posts 6374 | | |
1st
tl;dr
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palak United States. Sep 02 2010 01:49. Posts 4601 | | |
don't really expect anyone to read, posted it just for the fuck of it  |
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| dont tap the glass...im about ready to take a fucking hammer to the aquarium | |
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dogmeat Czech Republic. Sep 02 2010 01:52. Posts 6374 | | | |
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GoTuNk Chile. Sep 02 2010 01:56. Posts 2860 | | | |
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whamm! Albania. Sep 02 2010 02:01. Posts 11625 | | |
i just felt they scaring me with jesus and bible stories my whole life, pretty hard to get away if you're born and raised catholic, the internet finally convinced me, but i do still feel the internet is an evil place lol |
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Was an interesting read ty  |
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| how can u shove the river, he cant possibly call with worse -TalentedTom | |
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Read top half. The first three values you listed are actually Christian in origin. You just didn't learn them in a church. The fourth value is Socratic, which isn't much better. Sometimes religious belief aren't meant to be understood rationally. Don't be like Baal and think that's a bad thing.
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| | Last edit: 02/09/2010 03:50 |
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palak United States. Sep 02 2010 02:47. Posts 4601 | | |
| | On September 02 2010 01:38 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Read top half. The first three values you listed are actually Christian in origin. You just didn't learn them from a church. The fourth value is Socratic, which isn't much better. Sometimes religious belief aren't meant to be understood rationally. Don't be like Baal and think that's a bad thing.
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My view on that is pretty much explained in the second half of the post...They arn't Christian in origin, no one civilization can claim credit to originating any of them as each has come up with them separately. Hindus, Christians, Egyptians, Native Americans..they call came up with those views. I don't view it as a bad thing that some religious beliefs are not meant to be rational as long as the religious person accepts this and does not force it on other people through laws, discrimination, or other means. |
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| dont tap the glass...im about ready to take a fucking hammer to the aquarium | |
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I disagree but i'm too tired to write. |
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Loco Canada. Sep 11 2010 17:53. Posts 21004 | | |
atheism doesn't have tenets/virtues... you made yourself a philosophy which is personal to you and act like that's what any atheist thinks just because some might share it. i find it a bit ironic that those same ideals are upheld by religious people yet persecuted by atheists because they also have faith. i also think it's extremely ironic that so many atheists truly believe that they somehow don't have faith just because they aren't religious. goes to show how even some intelligent folks can be self-deceived.
anyway... i just don't understand the need to associate atheism with anything else other than what its definition is. it shouldn't be a 'movement' or a 'group' and if you make a philosophy of life and build ethics out of not believing in a particular god then you are no different from a mass of people who aren't atheists. |
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| fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount | |
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palak United States. Sep 11 2010 18:39. Posts 4601 | | |
| | On September 11 2010 16:53 Loco wrote:
atheism doesn't have tenets/virtues... you made yourself a philosophy which is personal to you and act like that's what any atheist thinks just because some might share it. i find it a bit ironic that those same ideals are upheld by religious people yet persecuted by atheists because they also have faith. i also think it's extremely ironic that so many atheists truly believe that they somehow don't have faith just because they aren't religious. goes to show how even some intelligent folks can be self-deceived.
anyway... i just don't understand the need to associate atheism with anything else other than what its definition is. it shouldn't be a 'movement' or a 'group' and if you make a philosophy of life and build ethics out of not believing in a particular god then you are no different from a mass of people who aren't atheists. |
bleh answered this a bit ago when someone else brought up ur same point....i wrote that not really as a general statement about atheism but as a personal view and the tenets listed arn't meant to be overwhelming all atheists but are supposed to be a personal answer to the question of "if you are an atheist where do you get ur morals from" and I should have stated in there that i'm a secular humanist which is where i get these morals from but that any human imo should also be a humanist in order to be a good person...so yes i agree that just because a person is an atheist it doesn't mean that they will for sure believe in the things i listed as i said i wrote that up in like 15 minutes while i was bored/tired one day so it is not the best worded ramble...but i do think that any person in order to be a good person imo should believe in the 4 things i listed in one form or another.
anyway edited the original to what it should have been roughly. |
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| dont tap the glass...im about ready to take a fucking hammer to the aquarium | Last edit: 11/09/2010 18:42 |
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Loco Canada. Sep 11 2010 19:47. Posts 21004 | | |
we need more than just to believe them, we need to embody them in the living act and not be forgetful. |
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| fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount | |
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