(August 4, 2011 at 8:15 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: So you are saying that you arrived at atheism absent of anyone else's writings or opinion? You just one day decided based upon your own original research that God does not exist? I am sorry, but that sounds pretty incredible.
I did. I was an atheist by the time I was 15 yet I never even picked up a book on it until I was 31. Hell, I didn't even know who Richard Dawkins was until South Park did an episode on him.
As far as original research, one only needs to look at human nature and see the need for control over its environment. This means explaining the cosmos any way possible, regardless of its basis in reality. This doesn't explain lack of a deistic type god, a concept which I claim agnosticism towards, but to me, it is good enough to dismiss any specific god humans have claimed to exist.
My point is that one need not study the cosmos to become an atheist. One only needs to understand how finite the human mind is and how strong the urge to explain the unknown with anything to maintain some sort of illusion of control over it. Any concept of god that lays claim to his/her/its attributes is flawed from the ground up.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
