Serious The Atheism/Agnosticism thread

Adamant Zoroark

Adamant Zoroark

catchy catchphrase
is a Contributor Alumnus
The point of this thread is so fellow atheists/agnostics can talk about why they hold their views, conflicts they've been in relating to their lack of belief, problems with telling friends and family about their atheism/agnosticism, etc.

I'm not necessarily leaving non-atheists/agnostics out of this discussion, though. Feel free to talk about your views on atheism/agnosticism, your experiences with atheists/agnostics, and so on. Just... Make sure it's not offensive or anything. Don't start any flame wars.

Also, I want to make it very clear that THIS IS NOT A RELIGION BASHING THREAD. Please, do not bash any religions in this thread. Thank you.

Anyway... My own input for this thread:

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I am an atheist, and have been an atheist for about four years. I began identifying myself as an atheist because I started to find the whole concept of religion (and deities) ridiculous.

However, for the most part, I've been a closet atheist. A few of my friends know I'm an atheist, while the only member of my family who knows is my older brother, who is also an atheist. One time I even lied about my religious beliefs on an application to a private college (Baylor University) because I feared that my admission odds would decrease if I told them my true beliefs.

I want to stop being a closet atheist. However, I don't know how my mother would think. I know my dad would be okay with it, but my mother is extremely religious (in fact, I was circumcised as an infant because of this, something I'm extremely angry with,) dislikes atheists in general, and has anger issues. She knows my brother is an atheist, although my mom is certainly not happy about it. I fear that me telling her I'm an atheist would push her over the edge, knowing that both of her sons are atheists, no matter how I went about doing it. At the same time, though, I feel it is not a good idea to keep this a secret my whole life. I want to come out, but I just don't think it's possible to do so without my mom screaming at me and chastising me.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. In the mean time, feel free to talk about your own experiences with atheism/agnosticism.
 
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As an atheist, I'm concerned with this thread and its goals.

Very religious people tend to hate atheists, and, well agnostics too.
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Bullshit. Being an asshole has nothing to do with being religious or not. There's as much atheists that hate religious people as otherwise.

conflicts they've been in relating to their lack of belief
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Atheism is often considered a belief wheras agnosticism isn't.

I have always been an atheist. I've never believed in any sort of God or similar being. However, I don't think this thread is helpful at all. Also, let's stop mixing atheism and agnosticism in the same bag. It's two terms that are totally different.
 
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LucaroarkZ said:
Atheism, atheism, atheism... Very religious people tend to hate atheists, and, well agnostics too.
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i cant claim to speak for other religions, but if you're a good Christian, you're not gonna hate someone just because of their belief system, because that's certainly not the way to make them receptive to your message that there's a loving God who wants to save them from their life of sin.... besides, the Bible teaches to love everyone and learn to separate the person from the sins they commit. that said, there are a lot of not-good Christians who are on a crusade not against sin, but against sinners (cough wbc), and that's a shame for causing division where there needn't be any.

in fact, I was circumcised as an infant because of this, something I'm extremely angry with
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ive gathered from your other posts that you live in the us, where circumcision is a common practice whether or not you're religious in the slightest for sanitary reasons. i don't know if you're truly 'really angry' that your foreskin was removed from your penis or just resent having someone else's will forced on your body for reasons you thought were dumb (though, as i've said, its actually usually a hygenic rather than religious practice), but i can assure you that your mother had your best interests in mind and, though i'm circumcised, the one friend i know irl who isn't says he wishes he was because it's such an inconvenience. just a little something i zeroed in on here, but if youre legitimately bitter about being circumcised you should probably learn to forgive. it's a minor thing.
 
I was raised as a a Christian, but I ended up moving over to atheism during my teenage years. As much of an influence Christianity has over our culture, I ultimately found the stories to be a bit contrived. Still, I've never shat all over anyone who still believed in God. I'm well aware that Christianity and most other religions for that matter have inspired people to better themselves, so I can't really complain about religion's existence.
 
I was raised in a non-religious nominally Catholic household. I have been an atheist for a long time, originally because "lol god is dumb' and eventually I figured out there are a lot better reasons to be an atheist than merely god being ridiculous. When I started studying some philosophy at university I came to the conclusion that both sides have logical arguments, but neither side is as logically strong as agnosticism because (A v -A) is necessarily true.
 
EDIT: wow, seriously, people are taking this the wrong way left and right. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to be a bit humorous this early. I am agnostic/inclusive atheist myself; this post is trying to be a "isn't atheism a bit silly? Some people refuse to believe in god, but when asked why, they only answer they give is 'it's what I believe!'". I know that most people that describe themsevles as atheists on here in particular do not fall into this category, it's called "exclusive atheism". Most people that ARE atheists are "inclusive atheists", while the most vocal/"better-known" atheists people don't like sometimes are called "exclusive atheists". I also changed some capitalization around because my phone did it automatically and apparently it set somebody off.

Atheism is kind of silly.

"There's no god!"
"Why?"
"Uh, because that's what I believe!"

Atheism and agnosticism are 100% different. I don't see much purpose for faith in my life, so I don't practice religion. If I die and it turns out that there is a god, I'll be pleasantly surprised I guess.
 
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cookie said:
"no"

atheism is generally lack of a belief in god. My non-belief in God, for example, is not a belief in itself because it comes from the lack of evidence that it exists, and evidence that it doesn't.
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You have just described agnosticism. Atheism is a belief that there is no form of god, not because of a lack of evidence but because it's what you believe.
 
Ah yes, Agnosticism's main benefit over Atheism is that it lets you turn your nose up at both religious people and Atheists. More skeptical than thou and all that.

Still, I have to wonder about the direction of a thread set to discuss our lack of beliefs.
 
GatoDelFuego said:
You have just described agnosticism. Atheism is a belief that there is no form of god, not because of a lack of evidence but because it's what you believe.
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Not believing in gods because of overwhelming evidence to the contrary may technically be agnosticism but it's practically atheism, and hence accepted fact. It's like me saying that because there's a non-zero (but laughably insignificant) chance that I will teleport to the other side of the wall I am facing (due to quantum tunnelling), that I "believe" I won't get teleported. No, it's a fact for all intents and purposes.
 
I'm not sure OP realizes that Atheism is also a religion. A religion is simply the rules, routines and practices we undertake as part of holding to our beliefs. A Catholic, for example, goes to mass every Sunday, goes to confession, takes communion, etc. I'm not an Atheist so I can't speak to what their routines are, but they still have certain things they do and rules they follow as part of their religion.

Honestly, if you're hoping this thread will go anywhere, you have to somewhat involve other beliefs besides Atheism and Agnosticism. It's fine to discuss your challenges in holding to these beliefs, but those challenges usually relate to opposing viewpoints, which need to be addressed if you want discussion to be complete. Good luck with this, as religion threads in a forum are notoriously dangerous and almost always degenerate into something unpleasant.
 
The way i see it, the main difference between atheism and agnosticism is that the latter is less absolute, even though practically they are both kinda saying ''I don't believe in god''.
 
Basically what cookie said, there are actually several types of atheism, compared to agnosticism which essentially just describes one specific type of non-belief. Agnosticism describes essentially saying 'we can never know for sure' and not having an opinion on the subject, hard atheism says 'there is definitely no god, 100% no chance of it existing', while soft atheism is essentially 'there's no evidence ergo I have no reason to believe, but there may be a slight possibility of me being wrong'. I wouldn't call hard or soft atheism official terms, but it's important to differentiate between them. Most atheists in my experience tend to fall into the soft category, even those who are otherwise hard ass anti-religion dudes like Dawkins tend to identify that way.
 
GatoDelFuego said:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwrel&v=CzSMC5rWvosSorry if it seemed I was being stuck-up, just people often use the two interchangeably when there is a difference. See this vid for a bit of an explanation (sorry my phone won't let me hyperlink)
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so he's making two points there:
1. the term atheism is weird because it's not like we have terms for non-golf-players. A valid point except that historically nobody ever gave a shit about whether you played golf or not because it's not such a pervasive part of society
2. He wants to describe himself as agnostic as opposed to atheist because of how the latter has been turned into a nucleus for what has become 'religion for people who think they're too smart for religion' for A LOT of people. Which is a bloody fair point. He falls under the same category of muslims who don't want to be tarred with the same brush as those who go round playing boom boom with buildings.
 
I've considered myself an atheist for a couple years now, however I'm more along the lines of an agnostic nihilist, which basically means there isn't a God as we depict he is, and the "meaning" of life is just something invented by humans. I view religion as something that was created to keep everyone in line, explain things we can't explain, and provide comfort for those deprived of it. However there is just too many instances of different religions saying that they have it right, and everyone is wrong to make sense; if there was a God who wanted to be worshiped as he is I would think it would want everyone to worship it in the same ways. Plus the whole "creationism" concept is complete bullshit, and is completely inconsistent with the scientific discoveries made today.
The nihilist part is coming from a similar place, because our intelligence and thinking capacity has advanced to the point where it's impossible to stay happy for long periods of time, and it is because of this where we think we deserve to be happy, while everything else can just be. Therefor we stay stuff like the "meaning of life" as a way to prove the point mentioned above, where there basically must be a reason why we go through the suffering the environment and others inflict on us. I guess there's a reason for living everyone claims they have, but I don't think there's one specific theoretic reason why we're here.

GatoDelFuego said:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwrel&v=CzSMC5rWvosSorry if it seemed I was being stuck-up, just people often use the two interchangeably when there is a difference. See this vid for a bit of an explanation (sorry my phone won't let me hyperlink)
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I agree with what Neil deGrasse Tyson, however concerning with what he said about atheists gathering together to talk about "how much they don't believe in God," I can partially relate to that; sometimes people need a little push or a little reassurance to still believe or think something, and with all the pressure of religious people forcing their religion on people left and right, sometimes you just need to talk and let what you're saying out. The active debating part though is when people do to religious people what religious people are doing to them, but in a less-violent and more orderly way. People debate not only to prove their point but to learn something about their debater, and I think that's where the main point is in those debates.

WaterBomb said:
I'm not sure OP realizes that Atheism is also a religion. A religion is simply the rules, routines and practices we undertake as part of holding to our beliefs. A Catholic, for example, goes to mass every Sunday, goes to confession, takes communion, etc. I'm not an Atheist so I can't speak to what their routines are, but they still have certain things they do and rules they follow as part of their religion.
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I wouldn't say atheism is a religion, first of all because religions are the practice and set routines you follow to worship a said God, while Atheism literally means "no God." It is a set of beliefs is that's what you mean however, but it's not a religion. There are no rules in Atheism like there are in something like Catholicism or Islam, there are no sins besides the obvious extremes (i.e., murder, rape, etc.), and there aren't any restrictions to what you can eat, wear, say, etc.

There's a great video I found that doesn't necessarily focus on religion, but it focuses on basically everything else: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a15KgyXBX24
 
splitting hairs over labeling is silly, and especially so when talking about agnosticism because if you wanted to get very, very technical, every single person on earth is an agnostic about everything since there is no true "definitive proof" for anything at all existing

which, of course, is an incredibly flawed and overly literal view of the world

a religious person and an atheist do not technically exist outside of the realm of agnostic, but we choose to think of them separately as a way of categorization


atheism is a religion like bald is a hairstyle, they are lumped together without being the same, for again, ease of categorization

atheism is not a religion under the same guise that not everything is agnosticism, because in technicality, belief in anything in our world is somewhat faith based, but that is overly literal and makes for poor labeling

basically, arguing that atheism is a religion is in a weird way opening a can of agnostic worms; but it makes for easier conversation since i assume most people understand what somebody is trying to say when they list atheism under religions


tl;dr dont split hairs over the dictionary definition of words as far as this subject matter goes since it doesnt contribute anything to anything (not that im really sure what this thread was trying to accomplish in the first place)
 
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Your first sentence bothers me a little. Please, do not allow the WBC to influence what your idea of an "extremely religious person" is. They are pieces of shit with no life that the rest of Christians (and humanity) utterly deplore. They don't follow the Bible, and when they do they warp it in such a way as they see fit to advance their hate speech. MOST religious people have no problems with the people of other religions / practices. They're taught to try and "fix" sin with the teaching of God's word, not to inherently hate or dislike a person BECAUSE they have sinned. That's not the cement of Christianity, so please stop thinking that just because someone is an avowed Christian means that they suddenly hate all things Islam, Lesbian, Atheist.
 
My parents are both incredibly religious, with my dad even studying to become a pastor. They basically understand where I stand on religion, and though they still treat me as if I was religious and I get the occasional chain email, they leave it alone. I think that both atheists and religious people often have a persecution complex when all we need to do is not be dicks to each other. Of course people like being dicks to each other, I do too, but any sort of perceived persecution comes from within ourselves.
 
I am Christian and I don't believe some man said poof and everything appeared out of nowhere. Science is highly advanced and has many facts proving our evolving over time. I am a Christian because of the morals that it teaches. Church to me is a gathering of people who like to share their morals and embrace them together. Branches of Christianity allow free thinking and interpretation. God to me is a symbol of peace and happiness, not a powerful figurehead that smites down every sinner on the planet. It is nice to have something to believe in, and to know that when I die, its not the end. (Personally, I would prefer, when I die, to wake up in a new life in the world of Star Wars because that would kick ass.) But whatever the case, I can believe something good will happen. Since I am not an atheist, I don't know most think will happen after death. I am basing this all off my atheist friend who is so scared and shamed of death and I understand that cannot be an easy burden. Having something to believe in lifts that burden off my shoulders, and I wish that peace could be held by any person, religious or not.
 
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