The Case for Atheism

[AnaMejiaP]

@AnaMejiaP, thanks for replying.

I'm less concerned with what god commands and more concerned about the truth claims the bible makes. According to what you've said, you take the creation story and Noah's ark to be literal? And when jesus chased out demons from possessed people, is that literal too? Or does he mean metaphorically and was actually giving them counselling and antipsychotics for their mental illnesses?

A lot of Christians would say these are metaphorical stories. The bible doesn't say any of these are visions or laments and they don't even involve a lot of fantastical things in the possessions story, but hindsight is 20/20. A lot of atheists/christians think that it's fine to be a christian and not believe in the creation story, that doesn't work for me. If god has a book, he doesn't get to make so many mistakes, it's all or none.

I asked because your belief sounds very rooted in the bible, and I wanted to see how you view things. And I'm tired of being told bad things are metaphorical while good things are literal.

All the mistakes in the bible is why I'm convinced that even if a god truly exists, Christianity certainly got it wrong. But if you look closely enough in nature, it becomes clear that it's highly, highly, highly improbable that any god exists.

The reason I decided to join here is to grasp the different point of views. I did not say that I hold all knowledge of the universe and if I indirectly implied so I am sorry. I can be ignorant at times. I do, hold the opinion that Noah and, the casting out of Demons Jesus perform and among other things were literal. (Can I prove it? No, all I have to go by are through eye witness accounts that Luke claimed it came from and his personal voyage with Paul, his disciples, Jesus's brother, the time gap that all of the gospel were being written, the historical knowledge, outside sources and among other things. Even in the OT, despite its claim (and yes like it has been previously mentioned that most books in the OT were written after the fact. But there's no scholars whether liberal or traditionalist who deny that the OT is a historical book. Like cities in the ANE that once thought to be myths were found to be true in externaI records, the Egyptians names were used accurately etc. (Notice I do not say that they were Israelites in Egypt) I agree most Christians hold the Bible to be more figuratively, and actually about 20% of Christians don't believe in Christ resurrection, and some don't believe that the Bible was inspired by God. I never said that I am complete certain that I am correct in my thoughts and logic in fact I may be wrong. (I did however say that I do believe Christianity to be more apparent than others but then again, I can be wrong) Among other things the Bible does encourage it to be tested and also states if evidence of Christ resurrection is false then consider it as rubbish. My roots are not merely based on The Bible, it's also about my own personal experiences that seems to difficult to explain. It's the most hardest thing that I believe any human can experience and follow. If any Christian says that being a Christian is easy than they are either A) lying or B) never experience truly what a Christian is about. Every Christian struggles whether it's sin, temptation, doubt, disbelief etc. I struggle, most to many Atheist would label me as "holy, bigot, ignorant, intolerable, jesus freak, etc" ( I say that may come from Christians who are thought to be holy art thou, intolerant, who are legalistic (like Christians can't smoke, drink, use profanity or have sex)that's bullshit by the way)) but really they're Christians who are not like that, they just give us a bad rep. I'm not holy, I won't ever consider myself as if I were, I'm not special or perfect. I won't try to shove my theology, religion, or Jesus inside someones throat, no why would I? The same questions you have asked about God and the Bible, I have asked myself countless time, all I have is to learn more, research and keep looking, oh and that thing called faith lol. By the way, thank you for answering my previous question.

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I simply look at the world around me.
I see no god, I hear no god, I feel no god.

People talk about a god, but I haven't experienced said god.

Then, I take a step back from the people in my vicinity and notice there are other people claiming similar things, but about some other god.

I do not experience that other god, either... nor any other god claimed by people all over the world.
What gives?
How have these people come to experience any god, if I can't?

Then I notice something else: it seems that claims concerning a specific god are geographically localized. If you're born in Europe or the Americas (which were colonized by europeans) you get christianity; if you're born in the Middle East, you get islam; is you're born in India, you get hinduism, etc, etc, etc... (just to name the best known ones)
What's going on here?

Is there only one god presenting itself in different ways to different people?... or multiple gods presenting themselves to specific groups of people in specific locations of the planet? Why don't I experience any of those?...
OR... OR... are people just convincing themselves and their children about the gods that they hear about from their relatives and acquaintances?
I mean, it looks like people convince their children about the story of god. These children grow up to convince their children thus creating an endless cycle.
Why do people do this?
What reason is there to teach your kids about some god for which you have no experience, except that which you convince yourself of?

Drich, a fellow forum-monger, says you need to have a mustard's seed worth of faith to believe... so faith is required to have faith.... sounds like circular reasoning, doesn't it? That's because it IS!
If you manage to mold a child's mind to accept something as truthful (and this isn't difficult), then that mind will grow with that belief ingrained, and convincing itself that it is right.... couple that with a lot of peer pressure and you get the religious movements.

Finally, I refuse. I refuse to believe. I want to know.
Belief requires that I accept other people's claims on face value... And that's not generally a very good idea.

If there is any god, I want to know about it. I refuse to accept other people's claims, so I would only accept it from the origin itself. I've been waiting for decades.
I am aware of other people who have been waiting for far longer than me.
I am aware that some people have lived in the far past and died of old age waiting for such experience.
So it seems that, if there is such an entity, it is not interested in making us know about it.
We then carry on with life under the assumption that it doesn't exist. The realization that believers are simply that: believers. They don't know. They believe.
It's all in their minds... those minds that were molded when they were young.

If it's all in their minds, then... it is not a real entity... It is an imaginary entity. It has been imagined in different ways, in different places, at different times, hence you got all the different religions and myths we got throughout human history.

PS: I am aware that some people do become theists at adulthood, but most believers are indeed indoctrinated as kids.
PS2: Oh, damn... Wall of text... sorry! And I know my walls of text tend to have little continuity, because they took too long to write.... sorry guys and gals!

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Ahhh... to be ignored. It's always an awesome ego boost

I'm sorry, I did not mean to ignore you. I'm still trying to get a handle on these forums and it still confuses me. Anyway, thanks for answering my question, it's much better than the usual "no evidence" response.