Hello Everyone
I am very excited and relieved to have found this wonderful forum. I am a 48 year old family man and Professional stand-Up Comedian living in beautiful Los Angeles. When it comes to religion I must confess, I lost mine and hope to never find it again. My Mother was Catholic, My Father an Atheist. Mother put me in Catholic school and Catholic Summer Camp at a Seminary, (where I just missed out on being molested by Fradder David-The camp nurse rescued me) and like any true Catholic my practice was limited to the time I spent in church, while Atheism was practiced in my daily life.
Up until a few years ago I believed in some type of afterlife and karma and blah-blah-blah. I tried Christianity and then Buddhism, Zen, studied Hinduism and Tao, why I even joined a Cult for awhile, and then I started meditating everyday...and as my self awareness expanded I realized that afterlife and Gods were self created thoughts made by my fickle Ego's vain desire to live forever. I simply couldn't stand the idea that my idea of me would one day not exist anymore.
I see this as humanity's greatest struggle-to realize your own vanity and humble down. Imagine if we were to live in the moment instead of killing one another for our beliefs, what a world this could be...a role model planet for the rest of this Universe.
So ultimately I'm an Agnostic who loves to debate all comers Religious and Atheist. I can't prove a God and you can't either. You can't prove no God and I can't either-but I lean so heavy towards Atheism, because if there is any type of God, it is clearly not a judge, or an authority, or a rule maker of any sort or type.. God, would be of such vast intelligence that we would be incapable of seeing or understanding it anymore than one could pull one of these letters off their computer screen and eat it for lunch.
However, you are certainly welcome to to try.
Peace In
Omjag86

Welcome to the forum Omjag86,

I imagine that even without religion, we would still find plenty of crap to fight over, but at least nobody would believe they had the creator of the universe on their side.

The mind seems to swing toward either eternalism or annhilism and both should be avoided. I still have a hard time believing that this me will stop existing in any way that is recognizable as me so I fantasize about flying off the planet when my body stops ticking away. On the one hand I am pretty sure it is a fantasy but on the other hand I've actually experienced life outside my body a few times.

Rhizo

(August 10, 2009 at 3:00 pm)omjag86 Wrote: I can't prove a God and you can't either. You can't prove no God and I can't either-but I lean so heavy towards Atheism

Have you ever considered reading Huxley's original essay on Agnosticism. I think if you do that you will find that agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism covers knowledge (proof, etc) whilst atheism covers belief.

Myself, I am an agnostic atheist. I can't prove God's non-existence, but that doesn't mean I have to believe God exists.

Welcome to the forums

(August 10, 2009 at 4:09 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Myself, I am an agnostic atheist. I can't prove God's non-existence, but that doesn't mean I have to believe God exists.

Nor, I suspect, does it lead you to weigh the possibilities as exactly equal!

Welcome to the forum OmJag

Kyu

Welcome Omjag

EvF

(August 10, 2009 at 4:12 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote:

(August 10, 2009 at 4:09 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Myself, I am an agnostic atheist. I can't prove God's non-existence, but that doesn't mean I have to believe God exists.

Nor, I suspect, does it lead you to weigh the possibilities as exactly equal!

Precisely. I'm with Dawkins on the "99% certain" line. I could be wrong, but no argument or piece of evidence has ever been produced which has convinced me there is a God. In fact most arguments I come across are just plain ludicrous.

(August 11, 2009 at 1:56 pm)Tiberius Wrote:

(August 10, 2009 at 4:12 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Nor, I suspect, does it lead you to weigh the possibilities as exactly equal!

Precisely. I'm with Dawkins on the "99% certain" line. I could be wrong, but no argument or piece of evidence has ever been produced which has convinced me there is a God. In fact most arguments I come across are just plain ludicrous.

Yeah we're pretty much on a par there ... we just disagree on definitions LOL

Kyu

Thank you for the tip on Huxley, I will track it down, or look it up.

I would take up agreement with all of those who responded to my Hello by noting my personal experience-the more I explored evidence of a God, the more evidence I found that God is a hoax, perpetrated upon us average folks, for the sake of keeping those in power in power.

I have found incredible intelligence throughout nature, and certainly while science discovers one process after another, validating natures intelligence, we certanly seem to struggle to find the origins of any given process. This however does not lead me to think that there's some magical old dude blowing life into everything anymore than I think Santa ate the cookies on his way back up the chimney.

Thank you for the feedback, it's good to find a place where he people are sane and rational about life and lifes origins.

(August 10, 2009 at 4:09 pm)Tiberius Wrote:

(August 10, 2009 at 3:00 pm)omjag86 Wrote: I can't prove a God and you can't either. You can't prove no God and I can't either-but I lean so heavy towards Atheism

Have you ever considered reading Huxley's original essay on Agnosticism. I think if you do that you will find that agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism covers knowledge (proof, etc) whilst atheism covers belief.

Myself, I am an agnostic atheist. I can't prove God's non-existence, but that doesn't mean I have to believe God exists.

Welcome to the forums

How do you "practice atheism"?

& welcome

(August 14, 2009 at 5:26 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: How do you "practice atheism"?

I do it in a mirror while no-one's looking. I'm getting quite good at it now