Atheist support, discussion, and information sharing thread

[Jar]

wow. I won't bash it but I think athesists are so out of tune with the universe. Just sayin

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by Jar

wow. I won't bash it but I think athesists are so out of tune with the universe. Just sayin

Um, this isn't a very nice thing to say. I am not an atheist but I would never say something so rude. Really Jar, was this necessary?

[Jar]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Um, this isn't a very nice thing to say. I am not an atheist but I would never say something so rude. Really Jar, was this necessary?

I didn't mean it to be rude. I just mean that anyone that doesn't think there's more is out of tune. Just my opinion

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Jar

I didn't mean it to be rude. I just mean that anyone that doesn't think there's more is out of tune. Just my opinion

Can you clarify what this means? What makes you think that people don't think there is more?

[Jar]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Can you clarify what this means? What makes you think that people don't think there is more?

I'm just saying that if people don't think there's more than this life, then they're outa touch with the universe.

[tapu]

Oh, good, Jar. We're glad you're back to offer that clarification.




Others, this to me, seems like a classic troll situation. Does anyone know this poster? If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but it seems obvious that it's not a sincere effort, if you will.

[Jar]

Originally Posted by tapu

Oh, good, Jar. We're glad you're back to offer that clarification.

Others, this to me, seems like a classic troll situation. Does anyone know this poster? If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but it seems obvious that it's not a sincere effort, if you will.

I have been on b-f.com and this site for years. You can ask most anybody here tofu

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by tapu

Oh, good, Jar. We're glad you're back to offer that clarification.




Others, this to me, seems like a classic troll situation. Does anyone know this poster? If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but it seems obvious that it's not a sincere effort, if you will.

No Jar is not a troll...

[amiyesiam]

Originally Posted by Jar

wow. I won't bash it but I think athesists are so out of tune with the universe. Just sayin

Originally Posted by Jar

I'm just saying that if people don't think there's more than this life, then they're outa touch with the universe.

Really?
can you please back this up with facts, figures, proofs, etc?
can you please explain exactly why athesists are out of touch?
and out of touch with what in the universe?

and
why would you feel a need to come in this thread to express this OPINION?
and
then say you were not trying to be rude?
perhaps thoughtless would be a better word


if there is a hell
I plan on and assume I will be there
next to a lot of people who didn't think they would be in the same hand basket as me

[WolfyOne]

Religion or your belief in any form is always an interesting topic

I came here to read more on Atheists and find slamming others instead
As a person that likes to learn what others get out of their religion or belief, I'd appreciate it if someone would make some posts regarding the topic

I don't know much about Atheists other than they don't believe in God
I'll be back at another time to read more from the OP and other posters

[amiyesiam]

Originally Posted by WolfyOne

Religion or your belief in any form is always an interesting topic

I came here to read more on Atheists and find slamming others instead
As a person that likes to learn what others get out of their religion or belief, I'd appreciate it if someone would make some posts regarding the topic

I don't know much about Atheists other than they don't believe in God
I'll be back at another time to read more from the OP and other posters

Hi Wolfy
like everyone else, atheists have feelings and don't like to have others say things that imply they are out of tune with things in life. Hence the negativity.
Personally I have spent to much time in my life defending others rights to believe as they chose to not comment on this.

What do atheists, agnostics, pagans, spiritualists, humanists, etc believe? As with any belief, what is believed varies from person to person.

Personally I am a lapsed Catholic, a nonbelieving one though. I am quiet comfortable not knowing. I am clueless about what happens after life and don't at my age feel a need to know. I find that the older I get the less need I have to have any type of religious belief. I understand that it won't change anything, at all, about how I live my life.
I have ethics and values, arrived at by rational thought and kindness. The most basic of these values will be found in the basics of ANY religious belief.
Then again, most of them could change based upon extreme situations.

I believe that the planet is "alive" in the sense that all its systems work together and it changes, evolves and grows.
I believe that it is wise to work in harmony with the planet and with each other.
I believe most people are basically good (psycopaths/sociopaths being the true exception)
I believe most people want the same basic things, acceptance, love, to live and grow, raise a family if they chose, and to find some semblance of happiness.
I believe there are many paths to truth. BY this I mean, if you need a god to tell you not to kill or you will go to hell ok, I can figure out that if I get to kill someone, then the next person gets to kill someone, and someone may decide to kill me, so it is probably not a good thing to kill.
however god can forgive the breaking of the thou shall not kill command, freeing believers from guilt. I have no such system in place. If I kill without extreme justification (like that person is going to kill me) then I will live with the guilt of my actions the rest of my life.

enough for now

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Jar

I didn't mean it to be rude. I just mean that anyone that doesn't think there's more is out of tune. Just my opinion

I wasn't going to respond, but then you came back in and said it again. So here is my opinion...

It doesn't matter if you meant to be rude, you were rude. I am one of the more outspoken non-theists on the board. I have been accused of being just like a fundamentalist just because I steadfastly refuse to pretend that there's one set of rules for dealing with the physical world and there's another set of rules for dealing with the 'spiritual world' that somehow is able to effect change in the physical world in a detectable fashion--as long as the means of that detection are not scientific. Now, it may be the case that I am wrong and there's one or more gods or everyone gets two or more lives or the Universe is the result of this or that divine being with this or that egg or what-have-you. I fully admit that I *might* be wrong.

However, when I look out at the Universe, when I contemplate the thirty-seven orders of magnitude we have access to from sub-atomic particles at one end to the large structure of the Universe at the other, I see something just as beautiful and probably quite a bit more terrifying than you may. I see a universe that at the finest scale plays merry havoc with all our intuitions about how matter and space and time 'should' work. Yet, our description of the universe at the sub-atomic scale, while incomplete, appears to work pretty well, pretty much of the time. The universe at the scale of the very small is sublimely beautiful. On the other scale, that of galaxies and superclusters of galaxies, of solar systems and the very 'beginning' and 'end' of the Universe, I see a landscape of incredible majesty, phenomenal energies, and deep, deep mysteries. I also find monsters. The kinds of things that will keep you up at night. Black holes are monsters. A black hole appearing in our neighborhood would visit unimaginable catastrophe on our planet. Yet, that is not even the most terrifying of the horrors. A few hundred light years from us, there's a star system which rotates on its axis in such a manner that one of its poles is pointed right at our planet. This star is MASSIVE and is a prime candidate to die in such a way that it could become a gamma ray burst. From so far away that it will take the light a century to get here, that star, if it blows up in the manner that stars of its size tend to do, could wipe out at least half the life on this planet--depending upon how long the burst lasts. And then, closer to home, somewhere on a very eccentric orbit there is likely a very big rock with our planet's name on it. The last time something really big hit the planet, it made the Yucatan get its unique shape and likely took down the dinosaurs.

And of all the potential ways our species could shuffle off our mortal coil, we can do something about *one* of them--the rock. There's no divine being that will make the star not die in such a way as to make a gamma ray burst. Either it will (or already has) or it won't. In my world, death is death. If you are the one left behind, you have to find the inner fortitude to go on missing someone you loved. If you are the one leaving, you have to find the courage to come to grips with your non-existence. It adds urgency to my life, makes it *vitally* important how I live. Because life is done in one shot, one take, in real time, in front of a live and participating audience who all are being imperfect humans as well. If it didn't have poetry and dogs, good food, art, music, cats, sex, beer, coffee, pot, writing and storms it would be a whole lot less enjoyable. As it is, it's a good life. I don't feel like I'm missing much of anything and I've been a believer--in both the Christian and New Age senses. I know what it feels like.

I'm a better person without spirituality or religion. I live my life more presently. My only reward for being any kind of decent human being is that I get to be some kind of decent human being. I think that is a rich and wonderful life and while I am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I recognize that I will. I don't like that, but no one ever does.

You may think we're out of tune but I prefer to think of it like this; my job is to accept the Universe on its terms, not try to make it conform to my terms. That doesn't mean I don't work for change. Because the universe is impersonal any justice, any love, any kindness or any mercy that exists in the universe will have to come from us or some other sentient species. That makes working for those things all the more important because if we fall down on it, for all we know that quality is diminished in the universe.

I don't know what you think I'm missing out on just because I don't expect the universe to conform to my own ambitions or my own desires. I don't think I'm missing much at all.

Cheers
Aj

ps. You get to have your opinion. I get to have an opinion *about* your opinion.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I'm a better person without spirituality or religion. I live my life more presently. My only reward for being any kind of decent human being is that I get to be some kind of decent human being. I think that is a rich and wonderful life and while I am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I recognize that I will. I don't like that, but no one ever does.

You may think we're out of tune but I prefer to think of it like this; my job is to accept the Universe on its terms, not try to make it conform to my terms. That doesn't mean I don't work for change. Because the universe is impersonal any justice, any love, any kindness or any mercy that exists in the universe will have to come from us or some other sentient species. That makes working for those things all the more important because if we fall down on it, for all we know that quality is diminished in the universe.

I don't know what you think I'm missing out on just because I don't expect the universe to conform to my own ambitions or my own desires. I don't think I'm missing much at all.

Cheers
Aj

Yes, this exactly. Thank you for saying it so beautifully Aj.

In a different thread, someone (other than Jar) posted that a life without belief in God basically had no meaning. Frankly, I got pissed.

I hear this a lot. And yes, a life without belief in God is still a life abundant with meaning...and values and love and joy and sadness and all the rest of it.
When Scoote and I were in the Bahamas on her award trip, her company did a day of volunteer work and guests (like my son, her son and myself) were invited to join in. We painted, landscaped, built bicycles for kids....lots of good stuff. We brought joy to a lot of people (including those of us who were doing the work ).

I know that many, including the founder of the company, included their belief in God in that experience and verbalized that. I'm fine with that. I'll even bow my head while you pray, out of respect for your beliefs. However, the experience was not any less touching or meaningful for those of us who participated simply because we were making the world a better place for some folks living on it who had less than we did, and who could use a hand.

What's frequently also implied is that somehow atheists are worse or less moral people than those who believe in God. It frustrates me....because not all of those who say they believe live a life that would meet my moral standards, let alone those that are espoused in the new testament of the Christian Bible. (And yes, I know that not all those that are believers are Christians....that's only an example.)

At the end of the day, I don't judge those who do believe in God. And I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

[Slater]

Originally Posted by JustJo

In a different thread, someone (other than Jar) posted that a life without belief in God basically had no meaning. Frankly, I got pissed.

I heard an argument made that a belief in God (at least in the Christian style) renders life meaningless. What happens here isn't really important, what truely matters is what comes next.

I don't entirely believe that argument but it makes an interesting point. I think it's one of the things that has always bothered me about most religions. I believe, regardless of whether or not there is a "next", while we are here then here is all that matters. If there is anything beyond here, it will attend to itself when the time comes. I cannot accept that life is nothing more than the drudgery we have to endure to earn a reward in some afterlife.

[ButchBowWow]

Originally Posted by Jar

wow. I won't bash it but I think athesists are so out of tune with the universe. Just sayin

Really?

Then why reply at all?

Just sayin....

[Dominique]

Originally Posted by ButchBowWow

Really?

Then why reply at all?

Just sayin....

Thank you! I was trying to find a way to not be snarky.....but every thread has to have one.

[hpychick]

It takes a LOT of faith to be an Atheist.

We are all going our own direction on our own path at our own speed.

IMO tolerance and respect for differing beliefs is needed here.

Please note: In My Opinion

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Jar

wow. I won't bash it but I think athesists are so out of tune with the universe. Just sayin

Funny that's kind of how I feel about people who believe in all those magical lies in the Bible..

Have you read Revelations?? Acid trip!!!

It's hard not to believe your intent was not to bash something when you come in ans say


"I won't bash it but"

It's pretty obvious when you start out like that your intent is to dump on a thread that really holds no interest for you, it's rather shitty to do.

[Jar]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Funny that's kind of how I feel about peobut"ple who believe in all those magical lies in the Bible..

Have you read Revelations?? Acid trip!!!

It's hard not to believe your intent was not to bash something when you come in ans say


"I won't bash it

It's pretty obvious when you start out like that your intent is to dump on a thread that really holds no interest for you, it's rather shitty to do.

I NEVER said that I believe in the bible because it was written by men who had thier own agendas.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Jar

I NEVER said that I believe in the bible because it was written by men who had thier own agendas.

I never said you Jar believed in the bible. I was stating what I thought about the Bibles stories, not what Jar believes about the Bible stories.