Atheists: Time to Come Out of the Closet!

I get that some people just can't deal with reality so make up their own. I just wish you wouldn't bother the rest of us with it.

I don't think anything can alter the fact that a human being is, in your words, "just a bag of chemicals."It is the people in our lives that lend meaning. Their personal beliefs about God don't matter unless we decide it matters.--Percy

If God said to me, "I'll give you 80 years of life, but that's all. There is no after-life", I would consider that 80 years of life just as meaningless as if there were no God at all. A finite life is meaningless; life has meaning only if it's eternal. You believe in God but also believe that this life is all there is? Huh? What's the point of believing in God if there's no after-life? If this life is all there is, your faith in God is as pointless and meaningless as the rest of your life.

I believe that it is people who give life meaning. The meaning we give to our own and other lives proliferates forward through the generations and never dies. My belief in God springs from faith, not from any associated benefits such as an afterlife or salvation. It feels as if for you there's a reward involved for belief in God, namely an afterlife. For me God just is. I know nothing about him, not even if he's aware of our existence, but I do believe the universe has meaning which we are unlikely to ever know.--Percy

Dredge:

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If God said to me, "I'll give you 80 years of life, but that's all. There is no after-life", I would consider that 80 years of life just as meaningless as if there were no God at all. A finite life is meaningless; life has meaning only if it's eternal.

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It's normal for hundreds of millions of people to get along perfectly well in life without being burdened by these after-life thoughts. What do you think you'd do differently if this god of yours revealed to you that this is all there is?

He would rape and pillage, or at least claim he would.

So to non believers, eternal life is expressed through ones offspring. Meaning originates and is defined by humans for humans from generation to generation.Which is why some of us want to mitigate Climate Change....not for our own benefit but for our children and grandchildren. Yet it seems that not much is really being done.

If this life is all there is, morality is meaningless. Doing good or doing evil ... it doesn't matter ... one is as meaningless as the other.

Your life must really be shit!

Not for this non-believer.There is no such thing as eternal life in any form. I expect my kids and grandkids will remember somethings about me but that's as far as it goes.My genes will live down the ages getting more and more diluted but that's of no interest to me; I am not my genes.Life is what we have, enjoy it anyway you can.

Still munching on those jesus-meat crackers, I see, Altar Boy.That hasn't helped any. Talk on about morality and meaning all you want. Your gods are still fantasy and your church is still evil. The Majik Cookies didn't do anything. Your soul is still slated for oblivion like everyone else's. If you want to be a blind ignorant evil-doing ass making life miserable in the interim then you have made a good start.Bad human. Bad, bad human.

If life is what you have, WHO or WHAT gave you what you have? You all can go on attempting to explain natural selection, evidence, experimentation and the scientific method and I will listen when it pertains to science or observation. When it comes to faith and belief, however, many of you threw it out along with your imaginary friends of your youth. You never considered faith or any type of belief at the adult, rationally-minded level.Perhaps you are right in that I don't understand atheists or atheism...I can always learn more through having conversations and the definitions and explanations gleaned from others. I will certainly agree with you in that "believers" in general do not understand atheism. I will call you and AZHater3 out for not only misunderstanding what it means to believe, but ignorantly labeling us as evil lying priests(*cough* AZ *cough*) or as people who are bonkers. I've got news for all to whom the shoe fits. For me, anyway being a believer is not refusing to grow up. I have as sharp a mind as any of you, though I won't say I am any smarter. My belief was born of individual experience (admittedly often in groups initially) and I will tell you that at worst you could label my belief as confirmation bias. In my opinion, of course you would be wrong. And yes, "it" just happened
one day. I prayed as I usually do, felt something akin to a subtle but palpable jolt of energy (awareness, even) course through me, and suddenly realized that something had changed. I chose to label the experience as an introduction to communion. Since that day, I have not become any more evil than I was before. I have not become willfully ignorant;on the contrary, I would level the same charge against many of you who not only refuse to consider the possibility that a higher power is real but actively resist such a ludicrous and irrational thought in the very soul of your being.I'm not scolding you, Tangle. You have made it clear to me many times before that it is unfair in the grand scheme that such an event or opportunity never happened to or presented itself(Himself) to you. Moreover, you dismiss it all as fanciful twaddle. Live and let live.

*you* on the other hand are downright the antithesis of me. To be fair, I would pick you over Dredge to be an internet friend as he is a novice at scripture, places his faith in the Catholic Church while having no clue how to be part of that Communion, and trolls you guys occasionally just to get a rise out of you. In your defense, I will state that hate is closer to love than indifference.We need to hash this out in a phone conversation one of these days if you can handle the heat. You are about my age, and the main difference between us is not religion. I think it's because you got laid more! The jury is out on whether you did more drugs. And don't get me wrong---I respect your scientific knowledge.

I think what you mean is that ultimate purpose is meaningless. Is it so bad to live in the moment? If eternal life did not exist, would it be any more appropriate for me to go over to Tannys house and wreck all of his dragonfly slides? Or step on his face? Or he step on mine?Let me ask you this.If the world tore down every Cathedral, wrecked every statue, and arrested Pope Francis, would God be any less real?

Absence of evidence does not equate to evidence of absence. I think that what makes you so anti is the behavior of humans who claim to be chosen. Those wretched priests never voted against the war. You suffered the consequences. Yes, evil exists. We humans chose it. Not just the Priests either. Perhaps he needs to try magic mushrooms! I hear that LSD therapy (and Psilocybin mushrooms) turn grouchy delusional people into more open-minded rational yet creative souls.