Why I am an atheist

[firstfloor]

and that day about three thousand of the people died.

[Cow Poke]

Reminds me of Paprika's awesome theory that religious belief is genetic. I guess since my parents and grandparents were all Christians, I and my siblings must be Christian even though none of us think we are.

I worked that the other way. Since my parents were Christians, I was expected to be one. I saw that as "accidental Christianity" - I could have been born in an atheist family, in which case I would be an atheist.

So, in my early teen years, I rebelled, and quit. God didn't. And here I am.

[Cow Poke]

I began to stop believing as soon as I was old enough to think for myself when reading the Bible.

Did you read that part that says "there is a way that seems right to a man...."?

[firstfloor]

First Amendment only applied to the God in the Bible.http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/j...nly-christians

[firstfloor]

I worked that the other way. Since my parents were Christians, I was expected to be one. I saw that as "accidental Christianity" - I could have been born in an atheist family, in which case I would be an atheist.

So, in my early teen years, I rebelled, and quit. God didn't. And here I am.

[MaxVel]

I used to be a Christian. In another thread Papa Zoom asked why I am now an atheist. Re-posting here to continue discussion:

Basically in 20 years or so as a Christian I never saw any evidence of the supernatural or of a benevolent and interventionist deity:

I don't get how you can be / become a Christian if you never thought that there was any evidence of a supernatural deity. Surely a Christian, at minimum, believes that Jesus rose from the dead.

Later, the enthusiasm with which the majority of Christians embraced anti-gay views made me re-examine my assumption that Christianity was having a net-positive influence on society:
The view I reached was that Christianity is now more often than not, a barrier to social progress, and its medieval (im)morality does more harm than good in the modern world.

Kate Sheppard.


The problem is that if you reject the existence of God, how do you objectively measure good, and how do you objectively determine what is 'progress' for a society?

If you haven't got an objective measure of these things, and can show that Christianity fails and something else passes, you're rejecting an objective truth claim('God exists') on subjective grounds. That's not very rational.

[Cow Poke]

I was.

God decided to have nothing to do with me from a very young age despite me living in a Christian home.

How do you know what "God decided"? That's as bad as "God told me to blow up California..."

Meaning NO disrespect at all, because I think you're being sincere -- I think what you had was "religion".

[seer]

On the contrary, modern liberal political philosophy has done far more. John Locke and John Stuart Mill between them and their followers created and shaped the entire modern political environment of democratic nation states, that maximize individual freedom, and pass laws based on a utilitarian paradigm of what is best, and protect human rights. Almost everything that is good about our modern world we owe to this strand of utilitarian political philosophy that has shaped it over the past few hundred years.

On Locke:

Some scholars have seen Locke's political convictions as deriving from his religious beliefs.[47][48][49] Locke's religious trajectory began in Calvinist trinitarianism, but by the time of the Reflections (1695) Locke was advocating not just Socinian views on tolerance but also Socinian Christology.[50] However Wainwright (1987) notes that in the posthumously published Paraphrase (1707) Locke's interpretation of one verse, Ephesians 1:10, is markedly different from that of Socinians like Biddle, and may indicate that near the end of his life Locke returned nearer to an Arian position, thereby accepting Christ's pre-existence.[51] In fact, historian John Marshall suggests that Locke's view of Christ ended, "somewhere between Socianism and Arianism."[50] Locke was at times not sure about the subject of original sin, so he was accused of Socianism, Arianism, or Deism.[52] But he did not deny the reality of evil. Man was capable of waging unjust wars and committing crimes. Criminals had to be punished, even with the death penalty.[53] With regard to the Bible Locke was very conservative. He retained the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures.[21] The miracles were proofs of the divine nature of the biblical message. Locke was convinced that the entire content of the Bible was in agreement with human reason (The reasonableness of Christianity, 1695).[54][21] Although Locke was an advocate of tolerance, he urged the authorities not to tolerate atheism, because he thought the denial of God's existence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos.[55] That excluded all atheistic varieties of philosophy and all attempts to deduce ethics and natural law from purely secular premises, for example, man's "autonomy or dignity or human flourishing".[56] In Locke's opinion the cosmological argument was valid and proved God's existence. His political thought was based on "a particular set of Protestant Christian assumptions."[56][57] Locke's concept of man started with the belief in creation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L...igious_beliefs

[JimL]

Did you read that part that says "there is a way that seems right to a man...."?

Yes, I know all about the fear mongering aspect of the Bible. Some may need that, and some may need the promise of a reward in order to treat others as they would be treated. Nobody is perfect whether they believe or not, being here on tweb is evidence enough for that, but to think that a supposedly loving God is going to destroy you or reward you based on whether you believe in him or not is ludicrous on its face. To me the principled atheist is more deserving of respect than the expectant believing Christian.

[firstfloor]

[shunyadragon]

Kate Sheppard.


The problem is that if you reject the existence of God, how do you objectively measure good, and how do you objectively determine what is 'progress' for a society?

If you haven't got an objective measure of these things, and can show that Christianity fails and something else passes, you're rejecting an objective truth claim('God exists') on subjective grounds. That's not very rational.

If you are Christian; 'How do you objectively measure these things?' Over the millennia Judaism and Christianity has not been 'objectively' consistent on these things.

Without any link to Judeo Christianity, nor considering God as the source of 'these things,' the Confucian Society of the East is very morally and ethically consistent for thousands of years.

[Jichard]

The problem is that if you reject the existence of God, how do you objectively measure good, and how do you objectively determine what is 'progress' for a society?

That's a non sequitur. Moral objectivism doesn't require a God, and Christianity can easily result in moral subjectivism.

Anyway, there are plenty of normative accounts of what is "morally good", that are compatible with atheism and moral objectivism.

Feel free to familiarize yourself with normative ethical positions that are compatible with moral realism. Plenty of accounts of objective moral facts, whether from Kantianism, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics:

(http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~alatus/phil12...ctivism.html):

If you haven't got an objective measure of these things, and can show that Christianity fails and something else passes, you're rejecting an objective truth claim('God exists') on subjective grounds. That's not very rational.

Yeah, I don't think you're using the terms "objective" and "subjective" in a way that makes sense.

[Papa Zoom]

Yes, there are tonnes of stories. All of which get proportionally more amazing and incredible the further away and less-trustworthy the source gets. I found the likelihood of a person having encountered a 'miracle' varied according to their credulity and gullibility. All the most astonishing 'miracles' seemed to happen to people who I wouldn't trust to be able to tell a miracle apart from a bar of soap. I never encountered any cases where it was convincing that a miracle of any kind had actually occurred.

Seem you are lumping it all into one post. And just because you haven't encountered it doesn't mean it isn't so. It may be that miracles do not happen. But you can't determine they don't happen because you personally haven't encountered any.

I'm referring to the zeal around the world with which Christians have publicly advocated against laws that gave gay people rights and protected them (eg made homosexual sex legal, civil unions legal, same sex marriage legal, banned workplace discrimination, and made hate-speech against gay people illegal etc), and the zeal with which they have promulgated various negative stereotypes and malicious lies about gay people (such as exaggerated and misleading statistics on the number of sexual relationships gay people have, the frequency with which their relationships fail, their parenting qualities, the frequency with which they abuse children, the degree to which sexuality is chosen and the ease with which it can be changed etc).

Which laws have Christians world wide advocated against to keep gay folks from having rights? There are already laws against workplace discrimination. You don't need a special law for "only" gays. And what is hate speech? Which malicious lies they Christians spread? The average gay person has many, many partners. Look it up.

"A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sex partners." [1]

"In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al., found that only 2.7 percent claimed to have had sex with one partner only. The most common response, given by 21.6 percent of the respondents, was of having a hundred-one to five hundred lifetime sex partners." [2]

"A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine Genre found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than a hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than a thousand sexual partners." [3]

"In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, M. Pollak found that 'few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners.'" [4]


1. A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 9; see also Bell, Weinberg and Hammersmith, Sexual Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).

2. Paul Van de Ven et al., "A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men," Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 354. Dr. Paul Van de Ven reiterated these results in a private conversation with Dr. Robert Gagnon on September 7, 2000.

3. "Survey Finds 40 percent of Gay Men Have Had More Than 40 Sex Partners," Lambda Report, January/February 1998, p. 20.

4. M. Pollak, "Male Homosexuality," in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, edited by P. Aries and A. Bejin, pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), pp. 124, 25.

Etc...

[Papa Zoom]

[QUOTE=shunyadragon;225748]

Tons of anecdotal 'stories' are absolutely no reasonable evidence for the existence of anything.

Of course that wasn't my point. I merely point out that these stories (which really amount to personal testimonies - and that is what I am referring to) exist and personal eye-witness testimonies are considered evidence evidence in a court of law. But that is besides the point too. The OP said he never witnessed any supernatural occurrences but many people claim to have done just that. I don't believe one can dismiss these "stories" outright. And again, I'm talking about stories meaning personal accounts.

These claims are stretch of the evidence from a biased position.

And your claim is from a position of bias as well.

Like most religions, they have a very mixed human history ranging from very good to horrifically evil.

I agree with you on this point aside from the fact that without an all good God there cannot be something truly objectively evil.

'Properly understood and properly applied,' is not evidence of anything. This claim could be made for any belief system including atheism.

I'm not sure you understand what I actually was trying to say. When people do evil in the name of Christ, they are not actually acting in His name. They are not properly understanding or Applying his words. Christian are called to love others and treat others with love. When that is not followed, those people are not following Christ. You can't willfully murder in the name of Christ. Just because you have the t-shirt doesn't mean you're really in the club.

[Jichard]

Of course that wasn't my point. I merely point out that these stories (which really amount to personal testimonies - and that is what I am referring to) exist and personal eye-witness testimonies are considered evidence evidence in a court of law. But that is besides the point too. The OP said he never witnessed any supernatural occurrences but many people claim to have done just that. I don't believe one can dismiss these "stories" outright. And again, I'm talking about stories meaning personal accounts.

Those stories/experiences can be better explained naturalistically, without appeal to a deity.

I agree with you on this point aside from the fact that without an all good God there cannot be something truly objectively evil.

For the life of me, I don't understand why so many theists make this false claim, especially when even many theistic philosophers recognize that it's false. Moral objectivism doesn't require a God (let alone an all good God), and Christianity can easily result in moral subjectivism. And here are plenty of normative accounts of what is "morally evil", that are compatible with atheism and moral objectivism.