Expressing Atheism

[mouthuvmine]

I don't think I will ever be intellectually complex enough for this sort of debate. My, in my nieve little world, brain always just assumed rotten people were rotten people, and good people were good people. Religion is just a +1. A christian nut would simply be a nut without religion. But a nut none the less.

And the idea that all Christians (and I single Christians out because we really are the worst offenders) are too blinded by God to see science is silly. Any religious person that says there can't be evolution because God just made it all and that's that are short sighted, narrow minded, and a little dumb to boot. I'm a fairly well rounded, mentally stable (mostly), intelligent human being that dosn't feel the need to quote seemingly randon bits of the bible when asked a question. I just believe what I believe, because of how I feel. I didn't make a scientificly sound, conscious desicion to believe in something I KNOW sounds ridculous.

I feel like this was kind of off topic, but I've felt that way about the last couple pages of this thread. I have been reading, but I never posted an opinion because these always tend to be touchy, and everyone here seems to be pretty nice people who I could otherwise get along with. So I just wanted to chose my words wisely.

[Nacho]

Well, maybe religion does now blind people to see science... But it definitelly doesn' t help. For instance, Einstein wasted his last 40 years trying to reply Heisemberg' s theory, because it was too "anti-God". Who knows how far could the physics be now if he used his brain to think ideas in the appropiate direction... 

[tr9000]

I've noticed this thread and I've decided to post. Forgive me but I didn't really want to read all 17 pages of this, I am a poor reader, but I will post what I believe in or what I've heard. Forgive me if i say the wrong thing or put things out of context, I won't say that I'm greatly knowlegable with this, and if you prefer, you could just say I'm a rambling fool (I personally consider myself one).

There are a few problems i find with religion. Some are selfish, some are hypocritic, some are extremists. At one point every religion has displayed these problems in history, If you feel that I'm exaggerating please feel free to argue your point.

I used to be in the Christian Faith but I was driven away by hypocrisy other Christians have, but I won't lie, I myself live with hypocrisy and continue living with this. I've noticed Christians always talk about being persecuted, and how they are treated, but then persecute the other religions. I won't say all Christians do this, I would say the extreme Christians would. Christians like to say they believe in this that they do this, but they don't live like that. Christians lack the tollerance that they wish they would be given. Again I will say not all Christians are like this, but from my point of view, most Christians I know are like this. People could say they are religious but not give a damn about other people outside their religion, even I have been kicked when I was down by Christians (metaphorically of course). And this is why I no longer believe in Christianity, but I won't say I hate Christians, I would say many are misinformed or are mislead. I myself have a few Christian friends who I would personally say are Christians in the truest sence.

One of the advantages of being an atheist, is that there needn't be any moral weight placed upon spreading the non-Gospel, or declaring atheism's superiority.

This is not necessarily true.  Athiest groups have tried to show their superiority, I remember about a year ago, or atleast half a year ago an Athiest group tried to have crosses removed that honored troopers who were killed in the line of duty. News Link And I've heard of reports that Atheist Groups want crosses removed from cemetaries.  I won't say all Athiests are like this, that would be a gross exaggeration, I have plenty of Athiest friends who don't care either way.

As I said in my opening statement there are selfish, hypocritical, extremely crazy religions out there and all religions have become this at one point, but that statement is a bit of a lie, atleast depending on your religious belief. Supposedly the Pharisees of the Jewish religion ploted the death of Jesus, the Christians had the Spanish Inquisition, The Muslims had the suicide bombers and terrorist attacks, correct? No. Sadly I fear most people believe that, that all other religions are plotting to kill them and force us to believe in their ways. Only a hand ful of these people (atleast in comparison of the total ammount of believers), the extremists, have harmed people for their religion. Everyone who believes in these religions are peaceful and could live together in harmony or close to it, but the extremists make us fear everyone.

Saying "the terrorists are Muslim" is not the same as "the Muslims are terrorists", but people treat them that way. Remember when we first had the terroist attack at 9-11? I heard a Muslim boy was brutally killed in school within the following week. Why? Because he was Muslim. This isn't fair. I won't say I know alot about the Muslim religion, but I'm very sure that they would like nothing less than peace with the world.

There is one more problem I find with religion. Many people find it hard to defend their religion without brutal force, whether physical or verbal. I'm sure if you challenge a Christian's belief instead of arguing their point, they would argue. Some may even go as far as saying "I'm right, you're wrong, you're going to hell." and then end the discussion. This has happened to me once, but I have to admit that I started the debate in a mean way, "Did you know the bible has 2 contradictory creation stories?" I know that was mean to attack the first book, the first chapter of the Bible, but if you can't defend the "corner stone" of your religion why believe in it. This is a problem I have with religion, they can't defend their beliefs if their beliefs aren't strong enough. But, I do tend to be a cruel person at times. I'm sure people would find me wrong to challenge someone's religion but, someone has to test them, to tug at their belief, and see if they could prove me wrong. If enough people could, perhaps I could believe in Christianity again.

I'm not trying to say believe in what I believe. I'm not saying religions are evil. But I will say this no matter what you believe in, you have to know there are people who are bigots in these religions that cannot tollerate other religions. And I ask you, whoever you are, whatever you believe in, whatever you do, don't become like that. Our world has enough prejudice without religious influence, we don't need a World Wide Holy War to see who's religion reigns supreme.

[EldKatt]

For instance, Einstein wasted his last 40 years trying to reply Heisemberg' s theory, because it was too "anti-God".

That's a bit of a stretch. Einstein's faith or lack of faith is a complicated issue that I won't discuss at length now, and opinions diverge regarding whether he believed in some manner of a God. The way I interpret Einstein's own words on the topic of religion, he seems to have been an agnostic or agnostic atheist, and if he could imagine some sort of god it was of the deist kind (setting stuff in motion and then leaving it running), and certainly not a personal god that interferes with anything. But whatever the case, giving religion as a reason for Einstein's suspicion of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is really something of a misinterpretation.

Sure, there's the famous "He [God] does not throw dice" quotation. But Einstein often used God as a metaphor for the awesomeness of the universe in general. Many scientists, of which many are atheists of one persuasion or another, do the same. (The legendary mathematician Paul Erdos, when seeing an elegant mathematical proof, used to say, "This one's from the book!", referring to a hypothetical book where God keeps all his elegant mathematical proofs. He also talked of  Erdos was certainly not a very religious man.)

When Einstein talked about God not playing dice with the universe, a perfectly plausible interpretation is that he merely meant that the universe is not governed by randomness. All pre-quantum-mechanics physics had described a universe that was governed entirely by rules. In theory, one would think based on this, if we knew all of the rules, as well as all the facts about the current state of the universe, everything should be predictable. The ultimate goal of physics is, of course, to know all the rules, or at least as many as possible. Einstein might have thought, and I find it reasonable, that by just accepting any degree of randomness we're taking a short cut, and missing out on all the real rules that are still unknown.

Einstein was human, and it's easy for us now to say that he made a mistake here (if he did--this one I'm not touching with a pole the size of Texas--I'm not a physicist!). But I believe that it was an intellectually honest mistake, not at all influenced by potential religion.