(December 19, 2016 at 10:42 am)Orochi Wrote: abusurd I no more fear the concept of god then I do the concept of invisible man eating gym socks

I WAS INVISIBLE THAT WHOLE TIME?!?!

If atheists were truly afraid of 'serve or burn', I think there would be a damned sight fewer atheists. While I find the idea that someone who claims to love me would burn me forever for the 'crime' of not loving him back to be a repugnant one, I feel that my reasons for being an atheist go a little deeper.

Boru

Gods are absurd in the 21st century, porp.  Time to grow up.

(December 19, 2016 at 10:17 am)purplepurpose Wrote: Is it fair to say, that many nonbelievers are simply afraid of Gods idea, preached by peaceful religions? The popular motto "serve or burn", which you can see around the world is indeed depressing.

"Some", perhaps.  "Many", almost certainly not.  I don't think I've ever met or talked to a "non believer" who was actually afraid of that in which he did not believe.  I know it is possible to both not believe in something and be afraid of it.  As a child I can remember both not believing in monsters had fearing one was under my bed.  But that really hasn't happened to me since I reached mental maturity, somewhere in the early teens, I would guess.

There are many types of atheists out there, only one type really attracted to a forum such as this.  For many who proclaim themselves to be atheist, they just never really thought about God much.  They are "atheist" because they don't believe, they don't believe because they've never been given a reason to believe and never had belief forced on them.  I would imagine a person like that isn't really "afraid" of God in any way as they typically haven't given him much thought at all.

Then there are atheists like us.  We are a little more "sure" of our atheism.  We've given it a lot of thought.  We like thinking about it.  We like talking about it.  So we come here because we just can't get enough atheism.  I doubt anyone here is "afraid" of what we are all (to my knowledge) pretty certain is a "fairy tale".  Might as well ask us if we're afraid to cross bridges for the trolls that might lie beneath them.

There is one type who might be afraid of God, the "new convert" to atheism.  I do remember dragging a lot of the fear and self loathing with me out of my old Pentecostal religion when I first left.  It took about a decade to shed all of that.  But that really had less to do with God or any concept of it than it did with the mental conditioning that comes with a fundamentalist, fire-and-brimstone religion like the one I was in.  Because I didn't know to seek professional help it took about 10 years for me to shake all the shit they had done to my head.  Nothing more.

Do I fear that which I don't believe exists?
Erm, no...
People who have "recently" left  religion frequently retain the fear of hell and harbour doubts regarding the wisdom of their conclusion, this seems to be roughly proportional to the length of time they were a believer, even with moderate denominations.
It also depends on how long they take to check all leads before they are certain as to their position.

It's possible that some people don't believe because of that, but impossible that everyone's reason is the same. I was born without a belief in god. I stayed that way because no one ever showed me a good reason to believe in god.

I don't think that can even work. If they are afraid of god then they believe in him. Atheist literally just mean we don't believe. How are we supposed to be afraid of something that isn't there? That's like having a person in a horror movie run from the demon and cover their eyes and say "I don't think you are real so you can't hurt me." If they really didn't think it wasn't real why would they run and cover their eyes?

What you are really asking is are we all lying to ourselves about not believing.

God is downright bulls***.

(December 19, 2016 at 12:34 pm)mlmooney89 Wrote: I don't think that can even work. If they are afraid of god then they believe in him. Atheist literally just mean we don't believe. How are we supposed to be afraid of something that isn't there? That's like having a person in a horror movie run from the demon and cover their eyes and say "I don't think you are real so you can't hurt me." If they really didn't think it wasn't real why would they run and cover their eyes?

What you are really asking is are we all lying to ourselves about not believing.

...lying to ourselves regarding having doubts. That's my guess.

(December 19, 2016 at 1:20 pm)purplepurpose Wrote:

(December 19, 2016 at 12:34 pm)mlmooney89 Wrote: I don't think that can even work. If they are afraid of god then they believe in him. Atheist literally just mean we don't believe. How are we supposed to be afraid of something that isn't there? That's like having a person in a horror movie run from the demon and cover their eyes and say "I don't think you are real so you can't hurt me." If they really didn't think it wasn't real why would they run and cover their eyes?

What you are really asking is are we all lying to ourselves about not believing.

...lying to ourselves regarding having doubts. That's my guess.

Well I have no doubts. I know what happens when we die. Our brains turn off and our bodies rot.