The Religious Atheist

[barbend]

I am a religious atheist:

On the most simplistic level, life is beautiful. Our existence, the moment in which we presently reside, and all that we perceive to exist is all unfathomably unlikely. The culmination of all the random events, chemical reactions, solar formations, planetary formations, evolution and human choices all converging into the current moment is incredible. This is what makes atheism beautiful.

It is argued that god and all of his creations are beautiful as they are made in his name and in his planned image. I fear that this ignores the complexity and coincidences that have been definitively proven to create our world; it undermines how special our present existence is.

In many of the mainstream religions the fear of emptiness after death is comforted, I also reason that this detracts from our human experience. With the creation of an afterlife or reincarnation we remove ourselves from the immediate moment. We minimize the importance of a single instant as we envision the eternity of existence left to come. However, within atheism, there is nothing to do but relish the present and bathe within the richness of our current instant. The vividness of our experiences made possible by miniscule subcellular interactions and billions of years of evolution creating our perceived existence.

Atheism is stereotypically viewed as cold, scientific and unemotional, but I contest that rather it is the pinnacle of self-enlightenment and spirituality. It is the acceptance that we cannot always explain everything and the realization that we need not create a theistic figure to simplify what we cannot comprehend. You surrender yourself to the majestic, complex, unfathomable universe in which we are merely microscopic cogs. Our planet and all the life upon it are part of a small oasis of entropic structure, fueled by the sun, within the vast expanse of chaos that dominates our universe.

As humans we are blessed to be partaking in something so amazingly unlikely and to simplify the wonders of our existence with a vague theistic simplification is a tragedy.

[Darkstar]

If I might propose a possible avatar:

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Er, I mean, the reverse of that.

[Simon Moon]

Welcome aboard!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you are calling 'religious' seems to be the awe and wonder you feel when you ponder existence, the universe, the unlikelihood of life, etc.

Not sure why you want to use such a loaded word to describe those feelings when we already have perfectly good words for them that won't conjure up all the baggage that goes along with the word 'religious'.

[Minimalist]

I guess I am a non-religious atheist.

Gods, demons, wizards, witches, ghosts, etc are all leftover superstitions from an ignorant past.

It is human arrogance to think that in a galaxy which has billions of planets we are somehow the only life form.

[Cato]

Religious atheist? Is this the same as a loving rapist...you know, the kind that calls the next day?

In the likely event that you missed my point, here goes:

I have a modicum of respect for deists. What happened before? Who knows? A deist assigns cause to a deity, usually called god. I suspend judgement regarding a universal cause and therefore have a disagreement with deists, but deists don't attempt to laden me with a bunch of bullshit, this is the provence of religion. Religion is nothing more than humans trying to tell others what to do in the name of the all powerful primal cause. Religion proclaims nobody knows the the mind of god, but have no problem telling you what god demands. Fuck religion.

All I ask is that you consider other adjectives when describing atheism. 'Religios' simply doesn't work. Perhaps 'awe-inspired' or 'respectful of nature', etc.

[orogenicman]

Religious atheist is a contradiction in terms.

[Tonus]

Atheism is stereotypically viewed as cold, scientific and unemotional, but I contest that rather it is the pinnacle of self-enlightenment and spirituality.

I like to think of atheism as the natural default state of man. To accept what we can see. To accept what we can understand. Above all, to accept what we can confirm, what we can verify. To use all of our faculties to discover our world, instead of using emotion to turn it into a confused jumble.

A spectacular vista or touching experience can move me, possibly even to tears. But that's not religion or spirituality, that's emotion. Religion feeds on our emotions. You can boil most theistic arguments and explanations to an over-reliance on emotion at the expense of reason and rational thinking.

[Angrboda]

Good. We need someone with your talents. Report immediately. http://atheistforums.org/thread-17829-po...#pid417541

[barbend]

In response to many of these oppositions about religion I think you may be confusing religion with theism which are quite different notions. I posted another reply to this on the thread: http://atheistforums.org/thread-17829-po...#pid417541
Also Apophenia makes extremely salient points that are academically well backed on that thread as well regarding definition of religion as well.

[KichigaiNeko]

No = answer to you question