Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist

[Bird123]

We all know God whether we know we know or not. Everyone will realize this when they bump into God again.

On the other hand, mankind has a ruling, controlling nature thereby using fear with threats, intimidation of Hell and punishment in order to alter the actions of others. Mankind attempts to speak for God while having very little real knowledge of God. I have found no religion that actually understands God at all. God is nothing like who religion portraits.

Could the reasons atheist do not believe in God be that the picture of God mankind sends them could not be the actions of the real Intelligence of a Being capable of creating the universe? Why should anyone believe that which does not add up? Perhaps, when one does not find truth, one should search for truth. Still, having fear or being intimidated is not the same thing as believing.

I still say deep down we all know God whether we know we know God or not. An elderly lady friend of mine said that when real trouble knocks on our door, everyone prays for help regardless of whether they claim to believe or not. Since we all deep down know God, we also deep down know God can fix anything.

It's all good!! Free choice is an important part of God's system. Regardless of one's choices there will be learning and growing toward a Higher Level and Great Wisdom and Intelligence. The time-based causal nature of the universe will bring the results so that we might Discover for ourselves what the best choices really are.

God has no need of those petty things mankind holds so dear like ruling, controlling, intimidating, coercing, judging, punishing, hating. condemning, anger, wrath, creating a we against they and all the other things that prevent one from a Higher Level. When one removes these petty things, it leaves room for Unconditional Love and Kindness which is at the cornerstone of what we will all Discover in time are the Best choices to make.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Audie]

"There are no atheists in foxholes" - Ernie Pyle

No atheists in foxholes: WWII vets remain religious | Cornell Chronicle

In World War II, men in intense combat were more than twice as likely to pray as those who were not. And the more that the veterans disliked the war, the more religious they were 50 years later.

news.cornell.edu

No Christians in foxholes.

As if ANYONE ever, said upon
seeing the tanks coming:

Glory be, I'm about to get eternal life!

 

[lukethethird]

Is religion anything other than superstition, and is God anything other than an urban myth?

 

[Valjean]

Science does have a Methodology, but Atheism people don't have any Methodology, please, right?

Regards

Of course not.
Science is trying to do something. It researches. It forms hypotheses and tests them. It has a goal. It uses a method or technique to do this.

Atheism has none of these. It does nothing, It has no goals. It had no doctrine. What would a thing that does nothing do with a method?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

View attachment 74641​

But for Hutson and others who are perplexed at the dogged persistence of “magical thinking,” it gets worse. Hutson cites studies that show the persistent belief in God is not merely understood as some distant Deistic First Cause but, rather, of a God who cares, a God who judges and a God who might punish. Deep in our bones we are intrinsically theistic. He writes, “Even atheists seem to fear a higher power. A study published last year found that self-identified nonbelievers began to sweat when reading aloud sentences asking God to do terrible things (‘I dare God to make my parents drown’). Not only that, they stressed out just as much as believers did.”
Why Atheists Don’t Really Exist

It seems it is hard to escape the primal feeling that there is something out there we'd rather not **** off.

God, Goddess, Gods, to whomever or whatevers it concerns, go Tanya Harding some *****es at the places I want to work at for me so I can get hired there.
Go give this one old boss of mine a severe case herpes all over her face.
And please tickle all my enemies to near death and lock them in event horizon so they get stuck feeling like that with all that blackhole stuff going on.
Is it because Im not an atheist that none of that bothers me?

 

[Valjean]

Speaking only for myself -- not a bit.

I suppose it depends a lot on how rational an individual is; whether s/he's more influenced by reason and logic, or emotion and tradition.

 

[RestlessSoul]

You might take about 5 years and read all of the posts by atheists in these forums. Near as I can tell, they (and I) have been writing pretty much without fear for years, all the while claiming that we really don't believe in the existence of deities.

How many hours, collectively, do you think all these atheists have invested in a religious forum? I do wonder myself, what proportion of atheists spend that amount of time obsessing about a God they claim not to believe in.

 

[Valjean]

No Christians in foxholes.

As if ANYONE ever, said upon
seeing the tanks coming:

Glory be, I'm about to get eternal life!

People in foxholes have generally abdicated moral responsibility for their actions and apparently believe their officers will take the responsibility upon themselves. They've allied themselves with an organization that not only violates Christian principles, but is totally dedicated to doing exactly the opposite of what Christ preached, in most cases.

What good would prayer do from a foxhole? Don't soldiers realize they're acting completely contrary to what Jesus preached? How can they not realize that in joining a military they've committed an unforgivable sin and have no hope of salvation?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I suppose it depends a lot on how rational an individual is; whether s/he's more influenced by reason and logic, or emotion and tradition.

Well, I don't accept that "or". In practice it is or sometimes and, and in other cases.
So if you can make a system of only reason and logic, write it down and post it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

People in foxholes have generally abdicated moral responsibility for their actions and apparently believe their officers will take the responsibility upon themselves. They've allied themselves with an organization that not only violates Christian principles, but is totally dedicated to doing exactly the opposite of what Christ preached, in most cases.

What good would prayer do from a foxhole? Don't soldiers realize they're acting completely contrary to what Jesus preached? How can they not realize that in joining a military they've committed an unforgivable sin and have no hope of salvation?

Well not all religious people are Christians and there are different ways to go about war as justified even among non-religious people. As for prayer even that varies for how those are used.

 

[Nakosis]

You might take about 5 years and read all of the posts by atheists in these forums. Near as I can tell, they (and I) have been writing pretty much without fear for years, all the while claiming that we really don't believe in the existence of deities.

Perhaps RF is not a representative cross-section of atheists.

 

[Valjean]

How many hours, collectively, do you think all these atheists have invested in a religious forum? I do wonder myself, what proportion of atheists spend that amount of time obsessing about a God they claim not to believe in.

We're interested in ideas, in philosophy, in psychology. We like to discuss these subjects, out of interest.

Why do find curiosity strange? We find it strange when people are not curious, and just accept whatever's comfortable or familiar.

 

[RestlessSoul]

We're interested in ideas, in philosophy, in psychology. We like to discuss these subjects, out of interest.

Why do find curiosity strange? We find it strange when people are not curious, and just accept whatever's comfortable or familiar.

Similarly, I am curious about the psychology of atheism, and particularly the psychology of the several rather militant atheists who frequent this forum. Which is why I occasionally question them about their motives. Why do you find my curiosity about atheists strange?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We're interested in ideas, in philosophy, in psychology. We like to discuss these subjects, out of interest.

Why do find curiosity strange? We find it strange when people are not curious, and just accept whatever's comfortable or familiar.

Well, I learn to do this from your group. The problem is that some of you try to eliminate subjectivity. You off course as individuals do that with variation but you all as objectivist end in objective reason and logic Versus subjective feelings.
The problem is than in philosophy nobody have been able to do life with only objective reason and logic.

 

[Valjean]

Similarly, I am curious about the psychology of atheism, and particularly the psychology of the several rather militant atheists who frequent this forum. Which is why I occasionally question them about their motives. Why do you find my curiosity about atheists strange?

I don't. I welcome it. Ask away, if you'd like to discuss it.

 

[Valjean]

Well, I learn to do this from your group. The problem is that some of you try to eliminate subjectivity. You off course as individuals do that with variation but you all as objectivist end in objective reason and logic Versus subjective feelings.
The problem is than in philosophy nobody have been able to do life with only objective reason and logic.

My only problem with subjectivity is when it's used to promote objective fact.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

My only problem with subjectivity is when it's used to promote objective fact.

Yes, but that problem of yours is subjective and not objective. Welcome to the fun game of philosophy. And that is fun is also subjective.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I don't. I welcome it. Ask away, if you'd like to discuss it.

Presumably you have noticed that there is a subset of atheists on this forum, outside in the real world, and in public life, whose interest in matters of religion borders on obsession?

There is a saying in some religious circles that God loves atheists because they talk about Him far more often than believers do. I do not consider you to fall in this category btw., but maybe you will recognise the type I am referring to. Do you have some observation to make about what drives a person who does not believe in God, to invest considerable time and energy in repeatedly expressing belligerent public denial?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Presumably you have noticed that there is a subset of atheists on this forum, outside in the real world, and in public life, whose interest in matters of religion borders on obsession?

There is a saying in some religious circles that God loves atheists because they talk about Him far more often than believers do. I do not consider you to fall in this category btw., but maybe you will recognise the type I am referring to. Do you have some observation to make about what drives a person who does not believe in God, to invest considerable time and energy in repeatedly expressing belligerent public denial?

One version for a single person I can across, what that he wanted to be right with evidence and he didn't want to doubt that, yet he claimed to be a skeptic.
In modern Western terms it is psychology for how humans cope.

 

[RestlessSoul]

One version for a single person I can across, what that he wanted to be right with evidence and he didn't want to doubt that, yet he claimed to be a skeptic.
In modern Western terms is psychology for how humans cope.

Well no one likes to admit, or even consider the possibility, that their most cherished beliefs might be wrong. But I have a suspicion that the more tightly a person clings to their particular dogma, the less confident they are likely to be deep down, about the integrity of it’s foundations.

For me personally, there are beliefs, opinions, philosophies, convictions etc, and then there is God. I have personally found the most reliable of these things to be God, though perhaps paradoxically, I really don’t understand what God is.

That’s just what works for me. Other people rely on other means of navigating the world, and that’s okay. But there are those atheists who appear genuinely offended that anyone should rely on a God of their understanding to get them through the day; why that is, I do not know.