Comment by Loop Johnny on November 8, 2010 at 5:17pm

Agree to disagree. I was a believer and I love the way I am now. I respect the persons who enlightened me. Just try imagining a world without religion and you will see what I mean.

Also, theists are backwards. They need god to find order in chaos when, in fact, every order you can find is given by the observer. The observer creates order in things. They just have an instance of their mind called "god's will" through which they perceive reality.

How awful to have your view on reality distorted with any implausible explanation to any unknown problem.

While theists are playing their real-life role playing game I am here, soaring through the universe, thinking to places where nobody has thought before.

Comment by Jon Heim on November 8, 2010 at 5:25pm

I embrace my atheism, but I definitely know where you're coming from. It's something I've thought about a lot before.

Comment by April on November 8, 2010 at 7:32pm

I completely understand where you're coming from. Religion can make you feel good, and some people lack the emotional stability to comfortably live life without it. However, in my experience this comfort can only last for so long. For intelligent people especially, believing something based on faith alone and having it constantly clash with what you see in reality is emotionally exhausting. I think that the turmoil one faces when having to constantly deal with conflicting explanations of reality is much worse than living without the comfort of religion.

Comment by Joli on November 9, 2010 at 8:13am

As someone who is a new atheist, I can see where you are coming from. Sometimes i think it would be so much easier to "believe", but if you look at the word itself, you can see the word lie and eve. Coincidence? maybe maybe not. It is better to know the truth even if it does seem to suck sometimes. I have the want to tell the world, but in doing so I would be telling people like my mother in law, and people like her,, well that's all they seem to have. She does not care about science or reality (I've never thought she lived in reality lol). So to tell her would kill her. just my thoughts :)

Comment by Jason Paisley on November 9, 2010 at 3:02pm

I was a firm believer in the whole "God will take care of it all" rhetoric after being quite agnostic but it was not long that i realized that a false sense of security and happiness is just that.

False.

I knew i was lying to myself and not living my life to it's best potential. Now as an atheist i am happier than i have ever been and i seek to shake other people out of the delusion so that they too can enjoy this life to the fullest.

Comment by Hannah on November 10, 2010 at 9:52am

@Loop Johnny
The human mind seeks to create order. I've never thought about God as a means to create that order... interesting, thank you.

@April J
Well, I think this comes down to the people who just say God exists. I don't literally read the bible and don't know how it works, I just know he's there. I have a feeling anyone who's religious and intelligent has to think this way at some point in time. Of course, I have an interesting input from a room mate on religion and science. She said if God didn't want people to know science he wouldn't have created it. It's a way for us to learn about his world, etc, etc. So, as I'm sure everyone here is aware of, there's lots of ways to comfortably explain away intelligence when believing in God.

@Joli
This is what I'm talking about, there are some people who just would not be able to handle discovering our truths. Many, many people are much, much happier knowing there is a God. And those are the people I don't want to hurt by telling. If people are questioning their faith, especially friends or loved ones, they all know I'm an atheist and I hope they would come to me to talk about, just like I've come to them to talk about God. I don't need to wander around spreading the word like the Jehovah's Witnesses :P

@ Jason Paisley
But the issue comes in when you have to acknowledge the fact that they don't think it's false. They really honestly believe God is going to save them or "will take care of it all." And for the Christians, living life to it's best potential is living for God (or however they would put it).

Ignorance is bliss.

@Melissa
I agree about the weak part. Sometimes I wish religious people could see how strong I'm being by rejecting God instead of praying for me to find him :/ I think it was somewhere on here that I read someone writing about something like... If a child was going to be hit by a bus and a Christian ran out to save the kid then what does that even mean, the man who saved him is going to "a better place" so what does it matter? Verse an atheist running out to save the kid, he/she really would be sacrificing their life. Which brings up a whole other can of worms, if some many people really do believe in God and heaven, why is everyone afraid of dying? That one's been bothering me lately...

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