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

[Aoi Magi]

Ok. Here is the "brass tax": do you trust people based on how they witness to what they say, or do you not?

The issue of the existence of God is separate. You can prove that with paper and pencil, no need look for miracles - just look for there existing ANYTHING, and realize that causes and effects, contingency, corruptible composition, and intrinsic purposes are all clear and infallibly point to the need for some First Cause which is uncreated, simple, infinite, etc., which we call "God." That God entering into creation by act (and by flesh) is something else... You are conflating the two. The first is answered by philosophy, the second by theology.

My suggestion is to stop playing cat and mouse with miracles (and other opinions, especially the most unfriendly ones, as puerile as their critiques tend to be) and read the New Testament instead, recognizing at what horrible personal cost those texts were written and transmitted over the Earth by those who claimed to have been there and saw it all for themselves or to have spoken at length with those who were there.

This guy seems to feel like God's existence is undeniable due to the fact that cause and effect is a concept. Doesn't really seem definitive enough for me.

It always amuses me how god must be uncaused, infinite, e.t.c yet somehow those properties cannot be applied to our universe. Moreover, even if I concede there was a first cause, how you get to a sentient creator from that, even philosophically is beyond me.

[Mystical]

Much less the specific god, they're talking about. How many religions are there/have there been in recent history alone?

[johan]

(Sorry if this comes up as a double post)

In response to the posts about tests of our faith, from my understanding their moreso for our benefit so that we can determine our strengths/weaknesses, growing closer to God as we ask for His help.

As you ask for help that you can never really be sure you actually received. You have to admit, if you were going to create a scheme of BS to get a group of people to follow your teachings/give you money, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a more effective line of bullshit.

Step 1. Scare the shit out of them - "You're going to burn in hell for all of eternity"
Step 2. Offer them a solution - "If you follow my religion, you won't burn in hell, instead you'll receive endless reward."
Step 3. Make sure they're afraid to doubt you - "You will never have any evidence that god exists so you MUST just believe without evidence AND god will know if you doubt and if you doubt, he'll make sure you burn in hell for all of eternity."

You gotta admit its a well designed scheme.

[Minimalist]

I can't deny that it puts a lot of things into perspective.

Good.  Hold the thought and keep on learning.

[Minimalist]

All mystery religions centered on a central savior deity (literally called
the soter, 'the savior', which is essentially the meaning of the word 'Jesus',
as explained in Chapter 6, §3), always a son of god (or occasionally a
daughter of god), who underwent some sort of suffering (enduring some
sort of trial or ordeal) by which they procured salvation for all who participate
in their cult (their deed of torment having given them dominion over
death). These deaths or trials were l itera11y ca11ed a 'passion' (patheon, lit.
'sufferings'), exactly as in Christianity.78 Sometimes this 'passion' was an
actual death and resurrection (Osiris); sometimes it was some kind of terrible
labor defeating the forces of death (Mithras), or variations thereof. All
mystery religions had an initiation ritual in which the congregant symbolically
reenacts what the god endured (1ike Christian baptism: Rom. 6.3-4;
Col. 2. 1 2), thus sharing in the salvation the god had achieved (Gal. 3.27;
1 Cor. 1 2. 1 3), and all involve a rituaJ meal that unites initiated members in
communion with one another and their god (I Cor. 1 1 .23-28). All of these
features are fundamental to Christianity, yet equally fundamental to all the
mystery cults that were extremely popular in the very era that Christianity
arose.79 The coincidence of all of these features together lining up this way
is simply too improbable to propose as just an accident.

Notably all the mystery religions were products of the same sort of cultural
syncretism. The Eleusinian mysteries were a syncretism of Levantine and
Hellenistic elements; the mysteries of Attis and Cybele were a syncretism of
Phrygian and Hellenistic elements; the mysteries of Jupiter Dolichenus were
a syncretism of Anatolian and Hellenistic elements; M ithraism was a syncretism
of Persian and Hellenistic elements; the mysteries of Isis and Osiris
were a syncretism of Egyptian and Hellenistic elements. Christianity is simply
a continuation of the same trend: a syncretism of Jewish and Hellenistic
elements. Each of these cults is unique and different from all the others in
nearly every detail-but it's the general features they all share in common
that reflect the overall fad that produced them in the first place, the very features
that made them popular and successful within Greco-Roman culture.


Richard Carrier, "On The Historicity of Jesus"  Pgs 98-100

[Mystical]

I think the key phrase in that is "Dominion over death."
Simply something we cannot control, understand, accept totally, or deny.

I'm still not ready to die. I never will be. But at least now I wont be scared shitless that I wont go to heaven as I'm dying, or as I'm living. I choose to live my life as best I can to be a good person, and I don't need threat of hell to do it.

[Pat Mustard]

Oops my bad! *smacks forehead

I'm a former mod on here and even I know we can't let you post that link either, not until you've been here
for 30 days! But then.. we aren't much into censoring. Did they give you a time limit or is it indefinite?

I tried desperately to ask a Catholic forum for help once, for a missionary who would be willing to call and speak with my dad--who was threatening to take a walk in the desert and felt god was "okay with it" (he and my brother suffer a severe genetic mental illness). I hoped against all hope they could help him, but.. They didn't even let my post go through to the board! It.. broke my heart at the time. I guess Catholic an Christian forums are picky what does and does not show up on their pages.

The mod basically said they're against asking members to post comments on other sites.

Oh yeah, can't have the faithful off learning new things without proper supervision. They may learn reality is different than what their religion portrays.

[Mr Greene]

Thank you for your responses everyone. I plan on reading through and thinking more about things about why exactly I believe in God more tomorrow, and responding more as well. As for now, in short, I suppose it was because I was raised Catholic, looked into the teachings without questioning them too much, and following the teachings seemed right. It just made sense to me.

The thing is, questioning my faith seriously for the first time obviously forces me to think against what I've considered fact for a while. This is the first time I've genuinely thought, "What if there's no God?" I know, from the mindsets most of you are used to, God existing is just made up and doesn't make sense. It's hard for me to let go of what I and so many others considered fact. Obviously I need to look into this more.

OK whilst I was never a Catholic, I was sent to a Catholic school from 3-9yrs.
I became an atheist during this period, specifically just after First Communion (when I was around 7yrs old IIRC).
It began as spotting that what I was being told wasn't truthful, from there I tried to verify what I was being told and repeatedly ran into a brick wall.
Ultimately it comes down to the question; 
"Did the Jews tell the truth?"
It took me until I was in the final year of University to definitively answer that.
Jews did not exist before around 450 BCE.
There never was an Exodus from Egypt. There never was a monotheistic kingdom of Solomon.
The Jews lied.
Specifically the scribe Ezra, we aren't merely talking about a lack of evidence to back up the story in the bible, the archaeology actually directly contradicts the bible, prior to the book of Ezra.
Youtube link

[pocaracas]

I can't deny that it puts a lot of things into perspective...how the religious mold their lives according to what they believe God commands, trusting in faith a lot of the time rather than human logic. Aside from being raised/conditioned into the faith, I guess another reason why it's hard for me to drop it is due to the fact there's billions of other followers of a developed religion. I should probably look into some more theist accounts on why they believe in God, and continue to look into the main arguments (logical/teleological/cosmological/moral) and likely bring them up here.

You are committing a fallacious reasoning known as Argumentum ad populum.
I still marvel at how lots of people are unaware of this fallacy.

Ok. Here is the "brass tax": do you trust people based on how they witness to what they say, or do you not?

What?! How people witness what they say?
Eye-witness testimony is well known to be the least trustworthy of all evidence.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/eyewitness.aspx
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/h...ists-weigh

The issue of the existence of God is separate. You can prove that with paper and pencil, no need look for miracles - just look for there existing ANYTHING, and realize that causes and effects, contingency, corruptible composition, and intrinsic purposes are all clear and infallibly point to the need for some First Cause which is uncreated, simple, infinite, etc., which we call "God." That God entering into creation by act (and by flesh) is something else... You are conflating the two. The first is answered by philosophy, the second by theology.

1) "look for there existing ANYTHING" - of course, how else could anything exist? Only through the existence of something else!! Of course, makes total sense!
2) "causes and effects" - proof that energy is being exchanged. Paraphrasing a famous physicist, "no god is required"
3) "contingency" - I had to check with a dictionary, it means "a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.". So, the world is a complex one and our simple simian brains cannot grasp all the details. Big news!
4) "corruptible composition" - how do they come up with these terms? I have no idea what this is supposed to pertain to.
5) "intrinsic purposes" - Last time I checked, purpose was something in the domain of conscious creatures. What does 'intrinsic' mean in here?

Ah... all this nonsense points to some "first cause", which is magically "uncreated, simple, infinite, etc" and conveniently call it "god"... thus transforming it into a very complex entity, with all the baggage that comes with any religion (all religions claim to have one of their gods as the creator of everything, right?)

It's always interesting to note the chronology of things - First came belief in gods, then came these arguments to keep people believing under the illusion of firm reasoning.

My suggestion is to stop playing cat and mouse with miracles (and other opinions, especially the most unfriendly ones, as puerile as their critiques tend to be) and read the New Testament instead, recognizing at what horrible personal cost those texts were written and transmitted over the Earth by those who claimed to have been there and saw it all for themselves or to have spoken at length with those who were there.

Oh, the horrible personal cost!


Just because someone believes in something very dearly and is ready to suffer and even die for that belief, it does not mean that the thing being believed in is real.
Texts claiming to portray the tales relayed by those who were there... reminds me of the Red Book of Westmarch:
"
The Red Book of Westmarch is a [...] manuscript written by hobbits[...]

It is a collection of writings in which the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were recounted by their characters, and from which Tolkien supposedly derived these and other works.
"

Add pinch of magic... and... yeah... it's the same thing.

This guy seems to feel like God's existence is undeniable due to the fact that cause and effect is a concept. Doesn't really seem definitive enough for me.

yeah... it's not definite. But, for many, it's enough to strengthen their own belief, so it's a valid tactic.
If I was a believer and found that argument persuasive, I'd naturally try to convey it to you, hoping that you too would find it persuasive.

[Pat Mustard]

I can't deny that it puts a lot of things into perspective...how the religious mold their lives according to what they believe God commands, trusting in faith a lot of the time rather than human logic. Aside from being raised/conditioned into the faith, I guess another reason why it's hard for me to drop it is due to the fact there's billions of other followers of a developed religion. I should probably look into some more theist accounts on why they believe in God, and continue to look into the main arguments (logical/teleological/cosmological/moral) and likely bring them up here.

You are committing a fallacious reasoning known as Argumentum ad populum.
I still marvel at how lots of people are unaware of this fallacy.





What?! How people witness what they say?
Eye-witness testimony is well known to be the least trustworthy of all evidence.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/eyewitness.aspx
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/h...ists-weigh



1) "look for there existing ANYTHING" - of course, how else could anything exist? Only through the existence of something else!! Of course, makes total sense!
2) "causes and effects" - proof that energy is being exchanged. Paraphrasing a famous physicist, "no god is required"
3) "contingency" - I had to check with a dictionary, it means "a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.". So, the world is a complex one and our simple simian brains cannot grasp all the details. Big news!
4) "corruptible composition" - how do they come up with these terms? I have no idea what this is supposed to pertain to.
5) "intrinsic purposes" - Last time I checked, purpose was something in the domain of conscious creatures. What does 'intrinsic' mean in here?

Ah... all this nonsense points to some "first cause", which is magically "uncreated, simple, infinite, etc" and conveniently call it "god"... thus transforming it into a very complex entity, with all the baggage that comes with any religion (all religions claim to have one of their gods as the creator of everything, right?)

It's always interesting to note the chronology of things - First came belief in gods, then came these arguments to keep people believing under the illusion of firm reasoning.





Oh, the horrible personal cost!


Just because someone believes in something very dearly and is ready to suffer and even die for that belief, it does not mean that the thing being believed in is real.
Texts claiming to portray the tales relayed by those who were there... reminds me of the Red Book of Westmarch:
"
The Red Book of Westmarch is a [...] manuscript written by hobbits[...]

It is a collection of writings in which the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were recounted by their characters, and from which Tolkien supposedly derived these and other works.
"

Add pinch of magic... and... yeah... it's the same thing.

This guy seems to feel like God's existence is undeniable due to the fact that cause and effect is a concept. Doesn't really seem definitive enough for me.

yeah... it's not definite. But, for many, it's enough to strengthen their own belief, so it's a valid tactic.
If I was a believer and found that argument persuasive, I'd naturally try to convey it to you, hoping that you too would find it persuasive.

It looks to me that Balaco is running a parallel discussion on his quandary both here and at forums.catholic.com. The post he quoted which you replied to Pocaracas is this one here, by a poster e_c.

And after scanning through that thread, and reading this one, I must say kudos to Balaco for keeping an open and honest debate going through his indecision of faith.

---

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.