You don't need pascals wager to know most people believe in order to get comfort in death and not be punished.

Blackmail and bribing anyone?

The thing is, culture has ingrained the belief of an afterlife so much that to think otherwise is scary! Who wants to believe when they die, that's it? It's so much nicer to believe that you'll go to a nice place after you die with all your relatives. When I first doubted religion, it was very hard for me to let go of that belief, now in my more mature mind the idea of living forever in some afterlife creeps me out.

I have a 10 year old sister, and I make no secret of my belief to her (even though my mother probably doesn't like it.) I always tell her what I believe and that she has the right to decide what to believe. I tell her to listen in religion class but question everything. And when I tell her things about my belief system some times her face will light up because it makes sense to her and she's like "Oh, yeah! That's right". But when she asked me what I believed happens when I die and I told her that I believe nothing happens, that you're gone. She looked visibly scared and I honestly had no idea how to respond.

(September 2, 2008 at 9:08 am)Ace Wrote: What if atheists ended up in heaven and theists ended up in hell?
......

You ask a lot of questions Ace.

I'm take it that you're joking. I just wanted to say that I'm not here to debate anybody. I have no delusions that anything that can be posted by a theist to an atheist could do anything other than invoke an explanation an explanation from the atheist as to why the theist is wrong. A similar thing would happen if an atheist started posting at a theist discussion forum. I simply don't wish to go to an atheist discussion forum and try to convince anybody that God exists. That would be a terrible waste of time.

I'm here because I'm curious as to how atheists view the world and how they choose what counts as knowledge. As such I may ask questions regarding the atheist views of epistemology.

(September 2, 2008 at 4:31 pm)Pete Wrote:

(September 2, 2008 at 9:08 am)Ace Wrote: What if atheists ended up in heaven and theists ended up in hell?
......

You ask a lot of questions Ace.

I'm take it that you're joking. I just wanted to say that I'm not here to debate anybody. I have no delusions that anything that can be posted by a theist to an atheist could do anything other than invoke an explanation an explanation from the atheist as to why the theist is wrong. A similar thing would happen if an atheist started posting at a theist discussion forum. I simply don't wish to go to an atheist discussion forum and try to convince anybody that God exists. That would be a terrible waste of time.

I'm here because I'm curious as to how atheists view the world and how they choose what counts as knowledge. As such I may ask questions regarding the atheist views of epistemology.

I fully understand.
Debates can easily start up and I being very eager and ready for one.

Anyway I can answer some of your questions here and now.

Now I'm the kind of person who needs to know not believe. I can't stand not knowing. I don't like guessing and so absalute knowledge is needed to satisfy my needs to understand my surroundings. I did give religion a chance but they failed to entertain my needs for knowledge. Everything about religion is just to simplistic, To simple and lacks allot of data. huge missing gaps. Every time I question those gaps I'm simply told not to question. Which goes against everything that I am. I want to know and to do that IS to question.

My main objective is to learn through question. Data is important to me, Religion cannot give me the data that I need. Religion evades my questions and leave those gaps unfilled. So I fill in those gaps with science and what I find is the complete opposite to religious claims. Like the age of the earth being 4.5 billion years old instead of 10 thousand. They use carbon dating and other ways to find such data and they provided me with the answers for which was an impossibility for religion.

What I've found in reason, logic and science opened my eyes to a new reality. A reality where there is no god, that every religion is just a lie. Nothing supports religious claims but everything supports scientific findings. It's like an arrow pointing towards science and telling me what side is the right one. Religion has a terrible past and nothing but a belief with huge gaps in it. Science is a process of learning and understanding and never evades questions. Personally I think I can easily call anyone arrogant if they think they know it all. The bible is just stories to me.
God is just an imagination.

This is why I'm an atheist pete. I lust for knowledge, I lust for data and answers not gaps and evasions to my questions. not to be told to not question.

It was my questioning that removed all chance of belief in god. Since my questions was not being answered and only being attacked.

The biggest reason on why I'm an atheist - Lack of evidence for the existance of god, devil, afterlife.

(September 2, 2008 at 5:21 pm)Ace Wrote: I fully understand.

I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that.

Quote:Now I'm the kind of person who needs to know not believe. I can't stand not knowing. I don't like guessing and so absalute knowledge is needed to satisfy my needs to understand my surroundings.

I'm the same way.

Quote:I did give religion a chance but they failed to entertain my needs for knowledge. Everything about religion is just to simplistic, To simple and lacks allot of data. huge missing gaps. Every time I question those gaps I'm simply told not to question. Which goes against everything that I am. I want to know and to do that IS to question.

I understand and I agree. It is my opinion that God wants me to ask questions because its only that way that I can get past my doubts. Those doubts will always be there. Leaving them ignored and untouched is probably why so many theists don't like to question their faith.

Quote:What I've found in reason, logic and science opened my eyes to a new reality. A reality where there is no god, that every religion is just a lie. Nothing supports religious claims but everything supports scientific findings.

Since you're open to science then I recommend that you read
http://www.geocities.com/pmb_phy/philosophy_physics.pdf

Its from an excellant text called "Classical Charged Particles" by Fritz Rorhlich. Its a very difficult text to read so I'm only suggesting that you read chapter one, the chapter on the philosophy of science. It will hopefully clear some misunderstandings that many non-scientists have about science.

Quote:This is why I'm an atheist pete. I lust for knowledge, I lust for data and answers not gaps and evasions to my questions. not to be told to not question.

Just because we want to know the truth it doesn't mean that we'll ever get it. Science can't tell us what the truth is. It can only describe the world in which we live. But we'll never know everything. Heck! We'll never know the most imporant things in life. For example; men will never completely understand women.

Pete

(September 1, 2008 at 8:43 am)Ace Wrote: Pascal's Wager (God is a safe bet)
"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing--but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

This argument is known as Pascal's Wager. It has several flaws.

Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem. If a person is a follower of one religion, he may end up in another religion's version of hell.

Even if we assume that there's a God, that doesn't imply that there's one unique God. Which should we believe in? If we believe in all of them, how will we decide which commandments to follow?

Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. Suppose you're believing in the wrong God--the true God might punish you for your foolishness. Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favor of prayer.

Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely--or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.

Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis.

Sounds like something the Christians ( including myself ) in my church
use to use a lot.....It goes like this;

" You can live your life believing that God exists, only to die and find out
that he didn't." Or you can live your life believing that God doesn't exists, and then to die and find out that he did.!!!.....( ouch! )

Thats one of those questions that got me in trouble when I asked the preacher......" Can I live my life as clean, responsible and sinfree as possible, and not have to believe in any God????

You have to question a God that gives us free will, doubt, and rational thought, then removes all presence of himself from the world and demands we worship him.

[quote='Pete' pid='801' dateline='1220485164']
I understand and I agree. It is my opinion that God wants me to ask questions because its only that way that I can get past my doubts. Those doubts will always be there. Leaving them ignored and untouched is probably why so many theists don't like to question their faith.
[quote]
Pete
[/quote]

It's in my opinion to question your god. If someone say's there's angels I'd question it all over. Nothing supports god's existance and so there is no data to be had and so I dismissed god. Rejected the claim in other words. I only hear about religion on this computer. Outside there is no such thing. In my home and in my town, Religion doesn't exist. I would never look at a church or anything of the sort.

When I first heard the storys of religion I thought it was a joke. When I realized that people actually believe such things that I thought everybody was an idiot. My father being a very strong atheist couldn't believe it himself. We made dozens of jokes about god and religion.

I can't believe such nonsense. Nothing personal but I feel to old, to grown up and mature to believe such things. God sounds allot like santa and I would look like a prat if people knew I believed in santa. My intire family are atheists, And we all see religion as a big joke. We'd look at religious people as weirdos.

Nothing supports religious claims. It's just a belief and it has no data so I conclude that it is false. Science has proven many things, For it has the evidence. un-like religion.

Evolution has countless fossils as evidence. Geology is used to tell the age of the earth, and many other things. Earth being 4.5 billion years old instead of only 6 thousand.
4.5 billion sounds more believable, also it has evidence. Un-like religion.

One has the evidence and so the data whilst the other only has storys and no data at all. This is why I am not religious. I need data and religion doesn't have that data. I doubt religion, I doubt god's existance and I question it heavily. I dismissed religious claims and turned towards science, Logic and reason. An atheist I remain.

(September 4, 2008 at 12:32 am)Tiberius Wrote: You have to question a God that gives us free will, doubt, and rational thought, then removes all presence of himself from the world and demands we worship him.

God also gave us free will so we have the choice not to worship him. Did your parents give you choice of whether or not to like them/love them? In fact they couldn't make you like them/love them. But most people love their parents.

---

(September 4, 2008 at 6:34 am)Ace Wrote: Nothing supports god's existance and so there is no data to be had and so I dismissed god.

Actually an atheist is a person who rejects what theists accept as evidence of the existance of God.

Quote:One has the evidence and so the data whilst the other only has storys and no data at all. This is why I am not religious. I need data and religion doesn't have that data. I doubt religion, I doubt god's existance and I question it heavily. I dismissed religious claims and turned towards science, Logic and reason. An atheist I remain.

Do you know much about why so many scientists believe in God? Have you looked into it at all or read anything about it? There is a question that physicists are struggeling with now regarding the fine tuning of the constants of nature. Are you familiar with it?

Quote:Do you know much about why so many scientists believe in God? Have you looked into it at all or read anything about it? There is a question that physicists are struggeling with now regarding the fine tuning of the constants of nature. Are you familiar with it?

Whilst I agree with much that you say I feel I must tackle this one.

To start with this depends upon how you define a scientist. There are many different fields and dare I say different levels but if we just take studies that deal with eminent scientists then the figures are as follows..

In 1998, a study by Larson and Witham appeared on the leading journal Nature ("Leading scientists still reject God"), showing that of the American scientists who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, only about 7 percent believe in a personal god. Religious believers form about 40 percent of the less eminent scientists in America.

A study in Britain, undertaken by R. Elisabeth Cornwell and Michael Stirrat, involved sending a questionnaire to all 1,074 Fellows of the Royal Society who possessed an email address, offering several propositions and asking the scientists to rank their beliefs on that point from 1 to 7. About 23 percent responded and preliminary results indicate that, of these, 3.3 percent agreed strongly (chose 7) and 78.8 percent disagreed strongly (chose 1) that a personal god exists. A total of 12 Fellows chose 6 or 7 to indicate that they were believers, while 213 Fellows chose 1 or 2 to indicate that they were nonbelievers.

So, in the United States, 7 percent of eminent scientists believe in God, while 40 percent of less eminent scientists believe in God. In Britain, the survey indicated that just under 5 percent of eminent scientists believe in God. A lesser proportion would believe in creation.