Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?

[brewer]

Balaco, why is your god referred to as a "HE/HIS/FATHER"? Why does your god have a sex?

[robvalue]

"Die for a lie" is a nonsense argument. Consider a religious war. At least one side is wrong but prepared to die for it.

But then lying and being wrong aren't the same thing anyway. Just because you believe something is true, it doesn't mean it is. There are also plenty of reasons why someone might die for something they know to be false anyway. It's appealing to motivations rather than facts, which is unreliable.

[Cyberman]

Exactly. A lie honestly believed is still a lie, and will never become truth no matter how earnestly it's believed or by how many people. In fact, the more belief, the more faith, the greater the number, is required to prop it up, the more likely it is actually to be a lie. It's what you do once you realise that it's a lie that determines your character as a person.

[Ben Davis]

Hi Balaco, from the UK.

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Before I begin, I ask that you please avoid being hostile or anything. I'm a Roman Catholic, but I feel like many people of faith immediately jump to degrading atheists as people, rather than trying to understand their mindset. I'm heavily confused right now, and am asking both Catholic and atheist sites for their mindsets. Obviously, Catholics are going to defend Catholicism, while atheists are going to defend atheism. I ask that you please be civil about it, as this could be life-changing for me.


I've been questioning how to improve in my Roman Catholic faith lately...but this morning I came to the realization that I never really questioned my faith itself. I was lightly raised Catholic and recently took it upon myself to grow closer to God. Now, for probably the first time in my life, I feel like I'm genuinely considering atheism as a possibility.

From what I understand, atheists do not accept the possibility of a supernatural being, and restrict themselves to our "natural" human thinking. Previously I thought that atheists are simply conditioned by society to the point where they are unable to "rationally" believe in a supernatural being...God doesn't allow us universally undeniable proof of his existence as a test of faith. Now, though, I feel like it's impossible to tell whether that mindset is correct, or whether atheists are correct in their focusing on our natural human mindsets. I do feel like I've felt something while praying throughout the past. 

The other night, for example, I was planning on praying for about fifteen minutes, but felt oddly calm and ended up taking about an hour. Now I feel like that could have just been because I was comfortable, and my mind was "making things up" as I was more convinced in my faith.


Atheists, why do you reject the idea of God, and why should I? I know that your answers will include "there's no evidence" and all that, but please try to explain.

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There's something I wanted to highlight that may put a different slant on your thinking. You seem to be identifying atheists as a homogeneous group whereas nothing could be farther from the truth. You see, the label 'atheist' doesn't tell you what people believe or hold as value-systems. It only tells you that they don't hold theistic beliefs. So there are atheists that are deists, buddhists, pagans, spiritualists, supernaturalists, scientismists, empiricists, materialists, rationalists, irrationalists and more besides! As I'm sure you're seeing, even amongst the people on this forum, there are differences in approach.

For me, I think the best thing to do is examine how you approach 'truth': how do you identify it, do you value it above other concerns (e.g. comfort), what are your standards of evidence, how reliable are your sources... These are deep questions and are not entered in to lightly; a good analogy for your current search.

I hope your quest is honest and fruitful.

[Crossless2.0]

Balaco, why is your god referred to as a "HE/HIS/FATHER"? Why does your god have a sex?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuHw5ivCs1A


He's going to be very popular!

[Aoi Magi]

The thread on the catholic side seem to have quite a few misconceptions about what atheists "believe". Maybe these threads cannot be linked, but I can read it as long as it's public, so...

how did existence come into being? Catholics believe God has always been, from eternity to eternity, but how do atheists explain that? Without a supernatural being there from eternity, there is nothingness, how does something come from nothing?

Atheists don't explain that, atheists admit they don't know those answers yet and are actively seeking those answers instead of making things up. Just cause one believes something, doesn't make it true, and just cause one claims to have an explanation, doesn't make that explanation correct.

God, first of all, chose to create the universe, the world we live in, all the creatures that live here, and the human race, He chose of His own free will, with no obligation whatsoever, no need to create anything, because He Himself is perfect, and perfectly happy, and had no need of anything, however, God is not predictable, and we do not understand His ways

If we do not understand, then why make claims and assertions about Him, instead of trying to understand?

Have you ever looked into the miracles of the church? Perhaps those would give you something to hold on to, for example, the incoruptable bodies of the saints, the miracle of the sun at Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes...there are countless miracles in the church, but those are a few which have been(and are) witnessed by the public, believers and unbelievers, which no one has ever been able to explain away

Incorruptible bodies of saints
Fatima predictions
Our Lady of Lourdes

And a bunch of other miracles...

There is a distinction between faith and knowledge. One comes from authority, the other from direct experience. There are certain things which in this world can only be accessed by authority... It is not satisfying to the intellect which has not yet humbled itself, because we really want that direct experiential knowledge. But this sets up an exercise in futility. It is only when you are willing to admit openly that you can't demonstrate this or that but are willing to trust the witnesses to those things that the restlessness will decrease.

Faith comes from ignorance, not authority. You can have faith your friend won't reveal your secrets to the teacher, and you have that faith not because of your authority but because you don't know enough about him to be confident, you know just enough to partially trust him. Trying to gain knowledge isn't futility, blindly trusting witnesses to determine the truth is futility. That's why we have so many religions with their individual list of witnesses and contradictory assertions, because some people are too lazy to actually verify the truth for themselves.

[Thumpalumpacus]

From what I'm gathering, you guys generally view religion as a product of the mind, an excuse for hope or political power, etc. that ignores logic and bends accordingly.

What are your thoughts on miracles, whether large-scale ones like the events of Fatima, or "personal" miracles like those listed on sites like these, http://www1.cbn.com/700club/episodes/all...ng-stories ....Lies? Coincidences? Exaggerations?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[Mystical]

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Oh, Balaco, I'd like you to ask e_c regarding his assertion that early christians wouldn't die for a lie if islam is also true as millions also died for that (some of whom are dying this very day), or if nazism is true (considering the thousands of Waffen SS and Wehrmacht recruits who died in the sincere belief that Hitler was right).

Just because people are willing to give their lives for an idea, that doesn't give it a free pass on showing the idea is right.

Indeed. And just in case, Belaco, you don't know of which Taz speaks re: Hitler? Here's a few of his reasoning's for the holocaust and a small breakdown of what led to his fanaticism.
The source I am copying from is atheist, but the quotes are real and easy enough to find un historical record.

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People often make the claim that Adolph Hitler adhered to Atheism, Humanism or some ancient Nordic pagan mythology. None of these fanciful and wrong ideas hold. Although one of Hitler's henchmen, Alfred Rosenberg, did undertake a campaign of Nordic mythological propaganda, Hitler and most of his henchmen did not believe in it .
Many American books, television documentaries, and Sunday sermons that preach of Hitler's "evil" have eliminated Hitler's god for their Christian audiences, but one only has to read from his own writings to appreciate that Hitler's God equals the same God of the Christian Bible. Hitler held many hysterical beliefs which not only include, God and Providence but also Fate, Social Darwinism, and ideological politics. He spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Hitler's anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Christian Austria and Germany in his time took for granted the belief that Jews held an inferior status to Aryan Christians. Jewish hatred did not spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War II. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther.
Hitler did not have to parade his belief in God, as so many American Christians do now. Nor did he have to justify his Godly belief against an Atheist movement. He took his beliefs for granted just as most Germans did at that time. His thrust aimed at politics, not religion. But through his political and religious reasoning he established in 1933, a German Reich Christian Church, uniting the Protestant churches to instill faith in a national German Christianity.
Future generations should remember that Adolph Hitler could not have come into power without the support of the Protestant and Catholic churches and the German Christian populace.
The following quotes provides some of Hitler's expressions of his belief in religion, faith, fanaticism, Providence, and even a few of his paraphrasing of the Bible. It by no means represents the totality of Hitler's concerns. To realize the full context of these quotes, I implore the reader to study Mein Kampf.
The purpose of this text intends to dispute the claims made by Christians that Hitler "was an atheist," or "anti-religious," and to reveal the dangers of belief-systems. This text in no way attempts to give endorsement to anti-Semitism.

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[Simon Moon]

From what I'm gathering, you guys generally view religion as a product of the mind, an excuse for hope or political power, etc. that ignores logic and bends accordingly.

What are your thoughts on miracles, whether large-scale ones like the events of Fatima, or "personal" miracles like those listed on sites like these, http://www1.cbn.com/700club/episodes/all...ng-stories ....Lies? Coincidences? Exaggerations?

There are many natural explanations that can account for reports of miracles.

What are your thoughts on miracle claims from other religions besides yours? What would it take to convince you that miracles from other religions are legitimate?

For example, Sathya Sai Baba, who 'died' in 2011, but of course, he really didn't die, as he will be reincarnated, right?

Here was a man with several million followers, many of them from Western countries, over 1200 worship centers all over the world, with hundreds of thousands at a time observing 'miracle' demonstrations (including producing objects from nothing, healings, resurrections, clairvoyance, bilocation, and alleged omnipotence and omniscience).

But of course, the unfaithful would say all his miracles were mere deceptions or mass hallucinations, etc. But we all know they are just infidels, right?

[Asmodee]

I had a similar experience with a similar outcome.  I finally came to the conclusion that the idea of an all-loving god who loved me more than I was even capable of loving would not lay down one right path, allow Satan to lay down tens/hundreds of thousands and then simply expect me to find the one right path on my own with the intention of lighting me on fire for all eternity if I were tricked into choosing wrong, as the Bible clearly says most people searching will be, was a massively idiotic idea.

I was taught that God doesn't give us undeniable proof of his existence as a test of faith...those with righteous minds would find him. Joker and any other Catholics, what are your thoughts on this?

That is not backed by the Bible, though.  When Thomas, who walked with Jesus, saw his miracles, heard him say that he was coming back in three days and then looked upon his face STILL did not believe Jesus didn't quote any bullshit about not giving him undeniable proof as a test of his faith.  He gave him undeniable proof.  The idea that the same God who had Moses have a spell fight with Pharaoh's wizard, destroyed Jews, Cities and the entire world, took a man into Heaven bodily in a fiery chariot, healed the sick, turned water into wine, walked on water and raised the dead somehow became a mysterious goth kid who sits in the corner just letting you wonder about his power is ludicrous.  This claim simply does not match the many descriptions of how God operates found in the Bible.  It is purely a modern creation designed to explain away the current absence of magical working rather than confront the reality that miracles as described in the Bible simply don't happen, so they probably never happened.