Do you not ask yourself "what if I am wrong?"

[crossfire]

In that case, I offer chocolate. Thick chocolate.

is it dark? i love dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate makes living worthwhile! :yes:

 

[Secret Chief]

Lady B,

If you have certainty then I understand you would be concerned about a paradigm that incorporates or consists of science because science is fundamentally based on 'what if', on doubt, on questioning.

 

[Secret Chief]

Dark chocolate makes living worthwhile! :yes:

And coffee. Don't forget the coffee.

 

[Alceste]

I have been bouncing around the different threads and I see so much false assurance,but what if your wrong?
In all due respect can an atheist have peace? Is there no higher power then science? Do you really sleep well at night content with no God? What happens after death? Where are your loved ones? Is earthly life all you strive for and death is the end of you? Are you so sure, really?
What if...just What if your wrong? What are the consequences of your denial?
:thud:

Yes, atheists can have peace. In fact, most of those who left religious extremism report MORE peace than when they had to worry all day long about their God's judgment.

Science is a method, not a power. Atheists don't believe in a higher power. That's why they're called atheists.

I sleep well, thanks. I don't see what your deity has to do with that. Is your God a God of sleep?

I expect the period after my death to be exactly the same as the period before my birth. If anything was happening back then, I certainly don't remember it, which sort of calls into question whether you could really call the entity that may have experienced some forgotten thing before my birth "me". See? This is how I put myself to sleep.

My loved ones and I are all in the same boat, as far as I'm concerned.

I value earthly life immensely, passionately, and with all my heart. It's incredible to think that I exist somehow at all. I can't get over it. I strive to be conscious of this as often as possible, live my life and treat others accordingly, and not reduce the value of my experience by telling myself it's all just foreplay and the real deal comes later.

I take great care not to be wrong when I come up with an opinion. Experience has given me great confidence in my ability to come up with opinions that are not wrong. I'm less concerned about the accuracy of my opinion on God than just about any other subject I can think of, since the proposition that such an entity exists (at least the one you are taking about) is simply impossible in every way.

If I'm wrong, well then I guess the consequence would be that I'll eventually find that out. After that, my fate depend on which of the millions of deities humans have fabricated over the years turns out to exist. I'd prefer Brahman, because I love it here and would like to come back, and because he isn't a jerk.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

In all due respect can an atheist have peace?

Yes.

Is there no higher power then science?

Depends what you mean by "higher power". Science isn't a "power". It's a method.

Do you really sleep well at night content with no God?

Yes.

What happens after death?

Decomposition. Also, sometimes a funeral.

Where are your loved ones?

Right now, mine are probably at work.

Is earthly life all you strive for and death is the end of you?

Yes and yes.

Are you so sure, really?

Yes.

What if...just What if your wrong? What are the consequences of your denial?
:thud:

Oh, gee, I never thought about that. Sign me up for Christianity!

Seriously, though, what if anyone is wrong about anything? What if you're wrong about God's existence? What if you're wrong about which God exists or which religion is the right one? What if you and I are both wrong about the world being round? What if everyone's wrong about the existence of leprechauns?

"What if you are wrong" is simply not an important question. What matters is not "what if", but "what is". The important thing isn't to consider what would be the case if your beliefs are wrong, what's important is that you make sure you have good reason to believe what you believe in the first place. When you accept reality for what it is, arguments that beging with "what if" lose all their power. It's an argument from ignorance, nothing more.

 

[crossfire]

And coffee. Don't forget the coffee.

:coffee2:Would I wind up in hell if I forgot the coffee? Is a caffiene-withdrawl headache hell?

 

[jarofthoughts]

I have been bouncing around the different threads and I see so much false assurance,but what if your wrong?

Then I'm wrong.

In all due respect can an atheist have peace?

I lead a life that I am very content with, where I get to do meaningful things that matter for other people on a daily basis, in which I am allowed the opportunity to learn, and where I can live my life as I want to live it.
So, yes, I generally feel at peace.

Is there no higher power then science?

Science is a method of inquiry.
I'm not sure I would call it a 'power'
Sure, it is a powerFUL method, the best we've come up with in fact, but a 'power' in and of itself...I don't think so.
As for 'higher powers' I am very much aware that I do not matter much in the big picture, not on the planet and certainly not on the scale of the universe.
And I am fine with that.

Do you really sleep well at night content with no God?

I usually sleep very well thank you.

What happens after death?

No-one knows for sure, but my expectation is...my body rots/is burned/whatever, and the thing that is 'me' ceases to exist.
In other words; nothing.

Where are your loved ones?

The ones who are alive?
As close as I can keep them.
The ones who are dead?
Gone, living on only as memories.

Is earthly life all you strive for and death is the end of you?

Earthly life is all I have, at least for now, and I've seen nothing to indicate that I will ever have anything else.
So, yes, I think death will be the end of me.

Are you so sure, really?

Again, I've seen nothing to indicate otherwise.
And while I am comfortable with that, I would like to point out that believing things because they make you feel good is a very poor reason.

What if...just What if your wrong? What are the consequences of your denial?
:thud:

*shrug*
I'll have to figure that out if that should happen, unlikely as I see the proposition.
Right now, I'm busy living this life.

 

[mycorrhiza]

I always ask myself "what if I'm wrong?". It's part of being skeptical and I think everyone should ask themselves that question, both when it comes to religion and when it comes to politics.

Does it prevent me from having peace in life? Not at all.


If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. The odds of getting punished in the Christian hell seems quite low, seeing as how many religions there are, many of them predating Christianity by thousands of years.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If there is a god, he would be infinitely understanding and forgiving, and would be above petty vengeance. A real god wouldn't have such a fragile ego that required constant reassurance through worship. A real god wouldn't gift us the ability ability to reason, only to have us to forgo its use by expecting us to blindly adhere to irrational and arbitrary commands.

*giggles at the liberal Scotsman fallacy*

:clap

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If there is a god, he would be infinitely understanding and forgiving, and would be above petty vengeance. A real god wouldn't have such a fragile ego that required constant reassurance through worship. A real god wouldn't gift us the ability ability to reason, only to have us to forgo its use by expecting us to blindly adhere to irrational and arbitrary commands.

The ability of knee-jerk heathens to intuit the necessary psychology of the preternatural is wondrous indeed, particularly since they delight in portraying their views as evidence-based. :biglaugh:

 

[Father Heathen]

The ability of knee-jerk heathens to intuit the necessary psychology of the preternatural is wondrous indeed, particularly since they delight in portraying their views as evidence-based. :biglaugh:

Is it not logical to assume that a hypothetical being of immense intelligence would act and behave intelligently?

 

[Reverend Rick]

Myself, I have considered that I may be wrong, (imagine that).

The bottom line for me is, if I am wrong, I will never come to the realization.

 

[kylixguru]

Is it not logical to assume that a hypothetical being of immense intelligence would act and behave intelligently?

Is it not logical to assume that a being of higher intelligence cannot be fully and properly perceived by a being of lesser intelligence?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Is it not logical to assume that a being of higher intelligence cannot be fully and properly perceived by a being of lesser intelligence?

Depends. Is math impossible to perceive properly?

 

[Father Heathen]

The bottom line for me is, if I am wrong, I will never come to the realization.

You will if you find yourself standing before Zeus.

 

[Father Heathen]

Is it not logical to assume that a being of higher intelligence cannot be fully and properly perceived by a being of lesser intelligence?

Perhaps, but that's just seems a cop out to justify all of the silly portrayals and perceptions of the various anthropomorphized deities.

By that logic, it could be claimed that someone with severe mental retardation is actually brilliant beyond our comprehension and that their smeared feces upon the wall is actually a vastly complex form of communication, containing the secrets of the universe, that we're simply unable to decipher with our limited minds.

 

[kylixguru]

Perhaps, but that's just seems a cop out to justify all of the silly portrayals and perceptions of the various anthropomorphized deities.

By that logic, it could be claimed that someone with severe mental retardation is actually brilliant beyond our comprehension and that their smeared feces upon the wall is actually a vastly complex form of communication, containing the secrets of the universe, that we're simply unable to decipher with our limited minds.

The only thing my point demonstrates is if a being of lesser intelligence encounters a being of greater intelligence that it would lack the capacity to fully appreciate and understand the greater one. This could show up in a multitude of ways.

For example, it is very likely that what today's credible historians do and say to allegedly prove Noah never existed and there was never a world-wide flood, could also be explained that they lack the intelligence to know who and what Noah actually was and the actual nature of the flood spoken of back then.

The Bible is going to look quite ridiculous to a person who misses the cues given to say how that narrative should really be interpreted when they try and look for the assumed literal manifestation of it.

God is a master at encoding things behind veils.

 

[Awoon]

Some people say that God is the "Supreme being," and humans are lesser "being."

So we have "being" being supreme and "being" being human.

Both are being what they are.

My question is why are Humans being Human?

 

[Twig pentagram]

I have been bouncing around the different threads and I see so much false assurance,but what if your wrong?
In all due respect can an atheist have peace? Is there no higher power then science? Do you really sleep well at night content with no God? What happens after death? Where are your loved ones? Is earthly life all you strive for and death is the end of you? Are you so sure, really?
What if...just What if your wrong? What are the consequences of your denial?
:thud:

If I Am wrong then I Am wrong. I've been wrong before, so it's nothing
new to me.

 

[EvolutionofThought]

First, My name is Jennifer.

Yesterday, I posted under Simplicityisntsimple... I really want to apologize to the person who asked the question of our history.... men doing barbaric acts to others... hiding behind wrong thinking... hatred... I don't know... I do know, those evils.... Hitler... LOST.... unfortunately... today a teenager is going on trial for beating a man because that boy (along with his friends) were bored...

For me, the bible has been a way to begin a conversation... a dialogue...
For me, infinite.... is awesome... and a very long conversation...
I am limited... G-d can't be...

When I am wrong... lately, I try to put all my vanities to the side... accept I am wrong... apologize (if necessary...) and learn...

Also, I believe I am accountable for every word that comes out of my mouth,..


Jen