I'm a respectful atheist. Ask me anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believer here.
God also created matter, time, order, mathematics , physical laws and logic.

Who created God?

If you believe "matter, time, order, mathematics, physical laws and logic" couldn't have come from nothing, why isn't the same true for God?

God exists outside of time itself. Time is a creation applicable only to the Universe which is also a creation. Our minds are not capable of comprehending Gods capacity.

Well that's a nice circular answer.

[Anonymous]

I'm back! I am not the OP, but I am the sometimes respectful and sometimes (apparently) not respectful atheist poster from last night. I posted from 19:46, 19:48, 20:19, 20:37, 20:47, 20:58 and 21:05. Then I got grouchy and posted 21:21

I don't think that the poster insisting that God exists out of time is trying to be circular. This is an answer that is the product of many years of indoctrination, from a young age. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household and it was a struggle for me to get clear of it. I was determined not to raise my children that way, but I also didn't want to become bitter or confrontational about religion. I just wanted to exist outside of it without making it important in anyway. This forum is the first place that I have ever spoken about it - in a variety of the religion forums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm back! I am not the OP, but I am the sometimes respectful and sometimes (apparently) not respectful atheist poster from last night. I posted from 19:46, 19:48, 20:19, 20:37, 20:47, 20:58 and 21:05. Then I got grouchy and posted 21:21

I don't think that the poster insisting that God exists out of time is trying to be circular. This is an answer that is the product of many years of indoctrination, from a young age. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household and it was a struggle for me to get clear of it. I was determined not to raise my children that way, but I also didn't want to become bitter or confrontational about religion. I just wanted to exist outside of it without making it important in anyway. This forum is the first place that I have ever spoken about it - in a variety of the religion forums.

Indoctrination (as you call it) or no, many physicists have no problem with the idea that our notion of linear time isn't the only time concept out there, and other "times" are tied in with the expansion of the universe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think the reasoning behind son's apology is different. If he apologised just to his sister, do you think he is really remorseful and never ever going to do it again? Just saying sorry doesn't mean that he is sorry for pushing a woman. Asking forgiveness from God involves processing the act and consequences inside your mind and changing your mind.

To OP: you are viewing all religions the same way (I assuming this was your quote: "What if you're wrong and the "right answer" is Islam and Jesus was just a man? Not trolling but just asking the same question of me to you."?). If you do a research, you will easily separate human created religion from the God, it is no brainer.

I also have a question for you since you said that bad things just happens. Have you not seen any connection why the bad things are happen? I know it is hard to see the connection when bad things happens to people we don't know -- like the plane crashed into the house, or the mention burned with 4 young children. But if you look at the lives of the people you know very well (or your own life) -- do you just ignore the connection or you cannot make the logical connection?

non-OP atheist here -- what is the logical connection you think is being ignored?

It is quit simple. God always gives you a choice in life, however there are consequences to every choice. At any given moment you making your choice, the consequences will come (either good or bad). So, given choices A or B, you will receive consequences C or D, with A-C or B-D (no brainer). If the consequence D is bad thing, you just say bad things just happen, right? You just don't go years back to the event B to connect it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think the reasoning behind son's apology is different. If he apologised just to his sister, do you think he is really remorseful and never ever going to do it again? Just saying sorry doesn't mean that he is sorry for pushing a woman. Asking forgiveness from God involves processing the act and consequences inside your mind and changing your mind.

To OP: you are viewing all religions the same way (I assuming this was your quote: "What if you're wrong and the "right answer" is Islam and Jesus was just a man? Not trolling but just asking the same question of me to you."?). If you do a research, you will easily separate human created religion from the God, it is no brainer.

I also have a question for you since you said that bad things just happens. Have you not seen any connection why the bad things are happen? I know it is hard to see the connection when bad things happens to people we don't know -- like the plane crashed into the house, or the mention burned with 4 young children. But if you look at the lives of the people you know very well (or your own life) -- do you just ignore the connection or you cannot make the logical connection?

non-OP atheist here -- what is the logical connection you think is being ignored?

It is quit simple. God always gives you a choice in life, however there are consequences to every choice. At any given moment you making your choice, the consequences will come (either good or bad). So, given choices A or B, you will receive consequences C or D, with A-C or B-D (no brainer). If the consequence D is bad thing, you just say bad things just happen, right? You just don't go years back to the event B to connect it.

Anita - is that you?

[Anonymous]

OP, how do you define love? For me Love is God. What about you -- just another human's feeling, like joy, happy, etc.? Do you believe that love has any power?

[Anonymous]

13:11: no, I am not Anita. Out of curiosity -- who is Anita?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:11: no, I am not Anita. Out of curiosity -- who is Anita?

Anita Bryant. She blamed the AIDS epidemic on the fact that homosexuality was a perversion according to GOD. Not to get down on you personally, but I would seriously like to ask what a 24 month old who dies from an easily curable bowel disease chose[i] that resulted in her death? You were saying, were you not - that it is some choice of ours that results in bad things happening to us?

[Anonymous]

Since at least as far back as Euclid, it has been known that logical reasoning begins with certain assumptions. We all have a model of the universe that surrounds, developed from our experiences since birth (or conception, if you wish). Some of us, myself included, do not see or feel God as part of that model, while God is at the very center of that model for others.

For me, at least, there is no reason I can give for not believing in God; I can't make myself believe any more than I can make myself six feet tall. And it appears clear to me that many people find it equally impossible to accept the existence of the universe without God.

The best we can do, IMO, is to accept that those with different viewpoints may be just as honest and intelligent in their views as we are -- that it is a complex universe we live in, that none of us fully comprehends it, and we just have to continue striving and live peacefully and respectfully with those who see it from a different vantage point.

[Anonymous]

I assume you're consistent and don't celebrate Christmas, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you mock religious people? If someone makes an offhand comment about going to church (say on a Sunday afternoon, mentioning they just came from there), do you sneer? If so, why?

I'm another atheist and I would never do that. I have been mocked by religious people but very rarely. I don't expect most people to mock me if I tell them I am not religious.

Out of respect and love, I listen happily to the sermon at your wedding and observe all the rules at a funeral. It's not difficult to be a good person in those ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you think you are smarter than and/or superior to religious people, specifically Christians? Be honest here, because I will... I'm a Christian and I think I am smarter than every atheist I know.

Not OP but another R.A. This is an interesting idea I've not heard before. What do you think accounts for why smarter people would be drawn to Christianity or religion?

Isn't it a matter of having faith, which is not an intellectual act? It's not anti-intellectual, mind you, I just mean that I think of faith (which I lack) as an act of the heart or emotion or what you might call soul and not a decision of the mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think the reasoning behind son's apology is different. If he apologised just to his sister, do you think he is really remorseful and never ever going to do it again? Just saying sorry doesn't mean that he is sorry for pushing a woman. Asking forgiveness from God involves processing the act and consequences inside your mind and changing your mind.

To OP: you are viewing all religions the same way (I assuming this was your quote: "What if you're wrong and the "right answer" is Islam and Jesus was just a man? Not trolling but just asking the same question of me to you."?). If you do a research, you will easily separate human created religion from the God, it is no brainer.

I also have a question for you since you said that bad things just happens. Have you not seen any connection why the bad things are happen? I know it is hard to see the connection when bad things happens to people we don't know -- like the plane crashed into the house, or the mention burned with 4 young children. But if you look at the lives of the people you know very well (or your own life) -- do you just ignore the connection or you cannot make the logical connection?

non-OP atheist here -- what is the logical connection you think is being ignored?

It is quit simple. God always gives you a choice in life, however there are consequences to every choice. At any given moment you making your choice, the consequences will come (either good or bad). So, given choices A or B, you will receive consequences C or D, with A-C or B-D (no brainer). If the consequence D is bad thing, you just say bad things just happen, right? You just don't go years back to the event B to connect it.

Non-OP atheist again -- It depends on the bad thing. If a smoker gets lung cancer, then yes, I can connect it. If someone cheats on an exam, gets expelled from school, has trouble getting a job without a degree, and loses their house, I can connect it all the way back. But some bad things happen for no reason -- a friend of mine (the most devout Christian I know, actually) lost a young child to cancer. My stepmother was in a car accident (she was the pedestrian, car blew through the crosswalk) that's taken her a long time to recover from.

So, some bad things are the result of your own choices. Others just happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assume you're consistent and don't celebrate Christmas, right?

I don't, but I attend my family's celebration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you mock religious people? If someone makes an offhand comment about going to church (say on a Sunday afternoon, mentioning they just came from there), do you sneer? If so, why?

I'm another atheist and I would never do that. I have been mocked by religious people but very rarely. I don't expect most people to mock me if I tell them I am not religious.

Out of respect and love, I listen happily to the sermon at your wedding and observe all the rules at a funeral. It's not difficult to be a good person in those ways.

+1. Another atheist here, agreeing that there is nothing about either believing or not believing that should interfere with ordinary civility.