atheism

//so how do you define god (bearing in mind that the bible said specifically that He created us in the image of Him)- is He white with a long beard, sandals, and a robe? Is he black? Is he brown skinned in a turban? Is he asian? Starting to get sticky, aren't we?//
I quite agree... I've asked this question for a while now and all I get are non-answers... "god is good, god is love, god is perfect, etc."...
I'd like someone to explain to me how god can be "everywhere", ie., omnipresent, and yet as a strong atheist, I have to go looking for him across the far corners of the known universe.
Is god in hiding?
What I want to know is how god can be claimed to be omniscient, "he knows what you're going to do", and we can still pretend we have free will?
What I want to know is how can an "all loving" (omnibenevolent?) god tolerate the cruelty and vileness that are embodied by some aspects of humanity?//here's what i believe- the universe, or cosmos, which may be composed of millions of universes, is infinite... it had no beginning, and will have no end... thus it had no creation, and therefore no creator...//
Hmmm... You might want to pick up the April '02 issue of Discover magazine for the article "Guth's Grand Guess" pp32.
Inflationary theory is, based on recent observations, pretty much the dominant Big Bang theory right now.
I liked this line, "The primordial "stuff" of inflation, he and other cosmologists contend, is very likely a spontaneous creation, a no-strings gift that boiled out of absolutely nowhere by means of an utterly random but nontheless scientifically possible process."
And, "All matter plus all gravity in the observable universe equals zero. So the universe could come from nothing because it is, fundamentally, nothing."//so why do we need a god?//
To comfort us in our fears and to try to explain the "unexplainable" to people unable to grasp complex concepts.//if we stopped thinking in such geocentric dimensions, maybe we'd realize how small we are...//
If you shrink the earth the the size of a cue ball the earth would smoother than the surface of the cue ball.
The entire ecosystem of the earth extends from roughly 100 miles up to about 20 miles below the surface.
Dunk that cue ball in a muddy, algae-ladden puddle of water and whatever sticks is pretty much the earth.Its all about scale.brett------------------
Faith in a delusional belief does not make that belief not delusional.

//Atheism, while not a traditional religion, is a form of faith.//
Atheism embodies the same sort of "faith" that you take for granted every time you drive your car.
You have "faith" that physics still operates the way it did yesterday.
You have "faith" that gravity will continue to operate.
I have "faith" that there is no god, nor the supernatural, no matter how it is defined.
My "faith" rests on the observable and the pragmatic.The difference is that religions require *blind faith*.
Faith in the unobservable, or in the miraculous or fantastic.It would be one thing to declare oneself an atheist if we lived in a world where gods routinely manifested miracles or their avatars to interact with us.
Where it would be common place to actually receive a boon for your subsurvience.
But we do not live in such a world.//Its interesting to consider that of all the people who believe in evolution, most of them hold religious views and believe in a creator of some kind.
If often boggles my mind at the kinds of things people can believe in.But understand that for most rational people, science and religion/belief are two completely different things.//There simply aren't enough of us atheists to cover all the numbers for a majority.//
And there might never be.
Modern atheism is only about 200 years old.
Prior to that it was simply too difficult, socially (unless you enjoyed being an outcast), to hold such a position.
It took the Enlightenment and the advent of the Industrial Revolution to provide the rational basis to even derive the notion of there being no god/supernatural.
Couple that with the backlash of the "atheist" Communist take over of Russia and China and the "social darwinism/atheism" of Nazi Germany and people simply refuse to believe that there isnt some greater purpose.
It is simply too painful to contemplate humanities innate ability for inflicting pain, misery and death on itself.I'd say we just need to wait it out... give it some time... and people will come around.
Except that religions thrive on social discomfort and change and I'm wondering what will happen now that the Information Age is no longer in its infancy.//As for the end of the universe, well , take your pick, heat death of the expansionary universe (the theory with the most support at this time) or the big crunch . The wimper or the bang ( ok crunch : ) Either way, adios universe.//
Whats that line?
"No one gets out of here alive"?There aint no "do-overs".brett------------------
Faith in a delusional belief does not make that belief not delusional.