I was raised a hardcore, Bible-is-inerrant-word-of-God, rapture-believing Christian. Around the time I turned 16, I learned about the theory of evolution, as well as how the religious-right and other assorted whackos are always purposely misrepresenting evolutionary theory in order to confuse people and dissuade their followers from considering it (my school gave people the right to opt out if they wanted, and my parents made me do so). I read books and watched videos about it on my own time, which led me to believing in evolution. I started reading more around this time (Nietzsche, Camus, Dostoevsky, and all that other angsty teen lit) and I believe that this may have further solidified my beliefs in regards to atheism. Though evolution may have influenced my decision to become an atheist, it should be noted that the majority of Christians actually believe in evolution (the Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox, and the United Methodist Church all have no scruples about the theory of evolution being true or accurate, and often encourage their followers to see it as God's handiwork; most Christians, as it were, are not biblical literalists). Most of the arguments I've heard put forth by atheists almost seem to strawman Christian and Muslim theology, treating the bottom-of-the-barrel literalists as though they spoke for the entire religion (of course, you don't need religion to believe in "god," just define what you mean by "god" first).
In regards to some of the posters above, I really don't think that being an atheist makes you any more intelligent than anyone else (I've met Catholics and Greek Orthodox Christians who I would say are much smarter and less mentally-lazy than I am). Sure, maybe smarter than your average fundie, but that's no great feat of intelligence or anything. Plenty of atheists (particularly those dumb "New Atheists") seem to subscribe to a rather naive and antitheistic view in which humans were a perfectly reasonable and pure species before they tasted the fruit of religion (hmmm, where have I heard this before??) and that if we were to find salvation from the corrupting influence of religion, we would be whisked away from the darkness that surrounds us and into a new world where the light of discovery would dawn upon us and the forces of "Science, Logic, Reason FTW" will reign supreme and establish a kingdom on Earth for a millenium until religious fundamentalists will wage war upon us once more, only to be defeated once and for all.
I've also met atheists who believe in a plethora of other dumb things; chem trails, Randian Objectivism, race realism, "Men's Rights," transphobia, red-pill 'philosophy,' evo-psych, reptilians, biological determinism, white-nationalism, anarcho-capitalism, you name it. I've met plenty of religious folks, however, who don't believe in these things.
No atheism does not make you anymore intelligent (nor is it a 'belief' system) But it does make you more rational and reasonable. Strictly speaking having a belief in a god is foolish due to the fact there is zero evidence in any supernatural.
And what exactly did god create anyway? The OP states something about afterlife. But as you clearly stated even religion has 'now' agreed to evolution. Any afterlife is a religious viewpoint, not a god belief.
Planets form and even entire galaxies form.
Atheists do debate too (not that there's any debate for a god any longer). But the general consensus these days is atheists ask you to question and learn for yourself.
You also mentioned 'dumb new atheists' and 'biblical literalists' and finally finish off with a very confusing point about things not related to atheists or religious people? Maybe if you stated that religion has caused more wars and rational minded people have devised medicines and the entirety of technology, that would have been reasonable, but your conclusion make atheists sound .. well like god believers!
I think you may be a tad mixed up still yourself.
Atheists means the lack of belief in any god.
And for that reason alone they are far more wiser than any god believer or religious nut.
Wow, thanks for reminding me of why I hate my fellow atheists. Like religious believers who believe themselves to have a monopoly on morality, idiots like you seem to think that atheists have a monopoly on reason.
"Maybe if you stated that religion has caused more wars and rational minded people have devised medicines and the entirety of technology, that would have been reasonable..."
Religion has been the cause of very few wars in the history of mankind, compared to other causes. Even so, it's absurd and reductionistic to assume that religion *alone* can be a cause of war; I believe that it is much more effective to say that, because religion has played a major role in societies' pasts (so much so that such things as the arts, theatre, governments, and yes, even the sciences were affected by and sponsored by religion throughout history) that inevitably, the ways in which people conducted and waged war were influenced to some degree by it.
"Atheists means the lack of belief in any god.
And for that reason alone they are far more wiser than any god believer or religious nut."
I think I just lost 10 IQ points reading this.
Lol, dats rite. Sir Isaac Newton? Herr Gottfried Leibniz? Rene Descartes? Blaise Pascal? Robert Boyle? Gregor Mendel? Max Planck? Kurt Gödel? Einstein and his Spinozist God? I am sooooo much more wiser and so much more a bastion of reason and progress to humanity than any of those deluded pricks. Suck it, non-atheists!!!
My reason in pointing out all the dumb shit that plenty of atheists seem to believe is in demonstrating that simply believing in one dumb thing less than your neighbor does *not* make you "far more wiser" or even "more rational and reasonable" than them, especially if you happen to believe in something dumb and unreasonable yourself (many atheists on the internet do believe in dumb shit).
As Richard Dawkins once said (and this is through memory, so bare with it). If Michael Angelo was not 'sponsored' by religion, there's no limits to the amount of other buildings roofs that could have been majestic.
Yes religion playED a major role, now it doesn't. Thankfully society has moved past religion.
The arts etc, is now done by anyone.
Its not the fact that some atheists may believe in crop circles, or any other silly belief. Its that the BIggest nonsense one of all 'god belief', is what they don't believe in.
Its the non belief in a god that makes them MORE rational. I know this sounds peculiar to you, but its because the god belief causes so much world horror and is forced onto children that makes it so bad. We don't force crop circles onto children or make wars (most by the way) from it!
As for your automatic human behavioral defense mechanisms like: "idiots like you". Not called for, there are younger teens reading and they may think you are right :D
If you think those are angsty teen lit your reading level is really high most teens read Twilight or some similar drivel :) thanks for your answer it's very interesting and a lot of good points.
I call it 'angsty' in my case because I don't think a lot of the teens who read this stuff fully understand it and they can also get incredibly smug about how intelligent they think they are for reading it (not that I would know anything about that, of course). I still read some of this stuff, though ('The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Stranger' are two of my favorite books).
Why are you atheist? (atheists only please)
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I was raised a hardcore, Bible-is-inerrant-word-of-God, rapture-believing Christian. Around the time I turned 16, I learned about the theory of evolution, as well as how the religious-right and other assorted whackos are always purposely misrepresenting evolutionary theory in order to confuse people and dissuade their followers from considering it (my school gave people the right to opt out if they wanted, and my parents made me do so). I read books and watched videos about it on my own time, which led me to believing in evolution. I started reading more around this time (Nietzsche, Camus, Dostoevsky, and all that other angsty teen lit) and I believe that this may have further solidified my beliefs in regards to atheism. Though evolution may have influenced my decision to become an atheist, it should be noted that the majority of Christians actually believe in evolution (the Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox, and the United Methodist Church all have no scruples about the theory of evolution being true or accurate, and often encourage their followers to see it as God's handiwork; most Christians, as it were, are not biblical literalists). Most of the arguments I've heard put forth by atheists almost seem to strawman Christian and Muslim theology, treating the bottom-of-the-barrel literalists as though they spoke for the entire religion (of course, you don't need religion to believe in "god," just define what you mean by "god" first).
In regards to some of the posters above, I really don't think that being an atheist makes you any more intelligent than anyone else (I've met Catholics and Greek Orthodox Christians who I would say are much smarter and less mentally-lazy than I am). Sure, maybe smarter than your average fundie, but that's no great feat of intelligence or anything. Plenty of atheists (particularly those dumb "New Atheists") seem to subscribe to a rather naive and antitheistic view in which humans were a perfectly reasonable and pure species before they tasted the fruit of religion (hmmm, where have I heard this before??) and that if we were to find salvation from the corrupting influence of religion, we would be whisked away from the darkness that surrounds us and into a new world where the light of discovery would dawn upon us and the forces of "Science, Logic, Reason FTW" will reign supreme and establish a kingdom on Earth for a millenium until religious fundamentalists will wage war upon us once more, only to be defeated once and for all.
I've also met atheists who believe in a plethora of other dumb things; chem trails, Randian Objectivism, race realism, "Men's Rights," transphobia, red-pill 'philosophy,' evo-psych, reptilians, biological determinism, white-nationalism, anarcho-capitalism, you name it. I've met plenty of religious folks, however, who don't believe in these things.
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No atheism does not make you anymore intelligent (nor is it a 'belief' system) But it does make you more rational and reasonable. Strictly speaking having a belief in a god is foolish due to the fact there is zero evidence in any supernatural.
And what exactly did god create anyway? The OP states something about afterlife. But as you clearly stated even religion has 'now' agreed to evolution. Any afterlife is a religious viewpoint, not a god belief.
Planets form and even entire galaxies form.
Atheists do debate too (not that there's any debate for a god any longer). But the general consensus these days is atheists ask you to question and learn for yourself.
You also mentioned 'dumb new atheists' and 'biblical literalists' and finally finish off with a very confusing point about things not related to atheists or religious people? Maybe if you stated that religion has caused more wars and rational minded people have devised medicines and the entirety of technology, that would have been reasonable, but your conclusion make atheists sound .. well like god believers!
I think you may be a tad mixed up still yourself.
Atheists means the lack of belief in any god.
And for that reason alone they are far more wiser than any god believer or religious nut.
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Wow, thanks for reminding me of why I hate my fellow atheists. Like religious believers who believe themselves to have a monopoly on morality, idiots like you seem to think that atheists have a monopoly on reason.
"Maybe if you stated that religion has caused more wars and rational minded people have devised medicines and the entirety of technology, that would have been reasonable..."
Religion has been the cause of very few wars in the history of mankind, compared to other causes. Even so, it's absurd and reductionistic to assume that religion *alone* can be a cause of war; I believe that it is much more effective to say that, because religion has played a major role in societies' pasts (so much so that such things as the arts, theatre, governments, and yes, even the sciences were affected by and sponsored by religion throughout history) that inevitably, the ways in which people conducted and waged war were influenced to some degree by it.
"Atheists means the lack of belief in any god.
And for that reason alone they are far more wiser than any god believer or religious nut."
I think I just lost 10 IQ points reading this.
Lol, dats rite. Sir Isaac Newton? Herr Gottfried Leibniz? Rene Descartes? Blaise Pascal? Robert Boyle? Gregor Mendel? Max Planck? Kurt Gödel? Einstein and his Spinozist God? I am sooooo much more wiser and so much more a bastion of reason and progress to humanity than any of those deluded pricks. Suck it, non-atheists!!!
My reason in pointing out all the dumb shit that plenty of atheists seem to believe is in demonstrating that simply believing in one dumb thing less than your neighbor does *not* make you "far more wiser" or even "more rational and reasonable" than them, especially if you happen to believe in something dumb and unreasonable yourself (many atheists on the internet do believe in dumb shit).
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As Richard Dawkins once said (and this is through memory, so bare with it). If Michael Angelo was not 'sponsored' by religion, there's no limits to the amount of other buildings roofs that could have been majestic.
Yes religion playED a major role, now it doesn't. Thankfully society has moved past religion.
The arts etc, is now done by anyone.
Its not the fact that some atheists may believe in crop circles, or any other silly belief. Its that the BIggest nonsense one of all 'god belief', is what they don't believe in.
Its the non belief in a god that makes them MORE rational. I know this sounds peculiar to you, but its because the god belief causes so much world horror and is forced onto children that makes it so bad. We don't force crop circles onto children or make wars (most by the way) from it!
As for your automatic human behavioral defense mechanisms like: "idiots like you". Not called for, there are younger teens reading and they may think you are right :D
If you think those are angsty teen lit your reading level is really high most teens read Twilight or some similar drivel :) thanks for your answer it's very interesting and a lot of good points.
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I call it 'angsty' in my case because I don't think a lot of the teens who read this stuff fully understand it and they can also get incredibly smug about how intelligent they think they are for reading it (not that I would know anything about that, of course). I still read some of this stuff, though ('The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Stranger' are two of my favorite books).