Oh my God, I'm an Atheist !!

Because many people were on about it and for months, looking back, I was half irrational in shock. And you make it sound like a more serious "exploring" than it was. It doesn't take very long to rummage through the corners of the dusty ol' mind and find that there's no monster hiding there. To be an atheist means one doesn't spend much time thinking about any old god. What I do spend time thinking about is the affect of a belief in a god. I agree with a great deal of what Dawkins and others have written from that thinking and personal observation. From the same place I think they might be throwing the baby out with the bath water. There may well be value in the religions that come from those beliefs and we may not know how to replace them. I wonder about a lot of things and hope to live long enough to find out if we are alone in this universe or not for example. However, I don't burn any brain fuel wondering about a god as described in any of the world's religions past or present. It is very clear to me that they are all, at their core, the same. What is worth wondering about is what is it in the way our brain works that makes it so easy for a large number of individuals to fall into the delusion about Odin, Zeus et. al.?

Shame it wasn't well spelled. I will leave my mistake so you can laugh at me. I really don't beieve that there is any misplaced parental urge which makes us see our purpose as 'glorifying God'. It is in the Bible, and 'course, so are angels who DO worship non-stop in a much different way. If God wanted more of those, well, He could have made some. I am sorry for your suffering. The only thing I can say I am sure about is that human nature is extremely inconsistant. If people can reject God during life, why not at the end, when they feel like it hasn't been worth it?

I think you must have misunderstood what I was saying, so allow me to speak more plainly. I think your question indicates a fundamental misunderstanding not only of atheism but of the nature of belief itself. PaulK is saying something similar when he says your underlying premise is wrong.--Percy

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Have you ever had a revelation in life, that exposed something that you knew to be true, but was always oppressed into thinking it wasn't?

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I can't think of any, but that is not really analagous. What we need is a situation where I do not even know the idea that I am supposedly resisting. In the incredibly unlikely idea that thee is some sort of God out there I have no idea what it would be like or if it would listen to me (and why would it ?).All I know is things I've been told by other people. I've no "deposit of the Holy Spirit" - and the only people I've come across who claim to tend to use it as an excuse to twist the Bible to make it say what they want - hardly "Holy" behaviour. Jesus' death ? Most likely he was just another wannabe Messiah who caused enough trouble that the Romans executed him But we don't have any reliable accounts so nobody knows what really happened. These things which you say are supposed to make me "know God in our hearts/spirits" do nothing of the sort. The first because it isn't there for me, the second because it's no more meaningful to me than the death of Joseph Smith or even David Koresh - perhaps a little less so since we have better information about the two more recent figures.

In Message 26

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I never claimed you, or any atheist was in denial.
I was never in denial.

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In Message 24

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Have you ever had a revelation in life, that exposed something that you knew to be true, but was always oppressed into thinking it wasn't?

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Isn't that what you claimed you hadn't said just a couple of posts later ?

Every atheist I've ever spoken with is agnostic.

firstly i think its a near impossible task to imaging , for real , ones last momnet .. we spend all our live concentrating on living and avoiding death , its hard then to take a realistic view ....i would hope i was thinking of those i leave behind , and that i am not the cause of to much distress ...what is even harder is to put oneself in your world view .. where a god exsists and we have the standard christian religion ... if we are not followers of that faith ...Also you put the view that atheists are active in their non belief .. however all the ones i know simple ignore , rather that preach , in the same way they ignore , nordic , greek , aztec religions.... the athesit only debate when a beliver confrounts them ..i feel that anyone who "finds" god , or is "found" by god on a deathbed is not a athiest but a agnostiic , and has already considerd "god" as a saftey net ...

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Will you at that moment look to God, and maybe ask Him something?
You know, the one that doesn't exist?

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If I was dying an agonizing, painful death then, yes, I probably would ask for mercy/forgiveness/whatever.What would that prove, other than the fact that I'd be desparate ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

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See I really do not believe that someone could be atheist (although I may be wrong) at best, anyone with half a logical/scientific brain, should be agnostic.

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What makes you say so?I'm an atheist with respect to the Christian (NT) God . I've concluded, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Christian God doesn't & cannot exist.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

Yes anyone can answer, FOR THEMSELVES. Why would anyone ask God anything?

I wonder about both. There are OBJECTIVE explanations for all of those. That's cool, and demonstrates that God meets us right where we need Him. That's what Jesus did, He went and met people right where they needed Him. You grew in the Lord. We all can grow in the Lord, myself especially. Atheism, IMO is growing in the Lord. Which helps to prove what I have been saying since the day I got here, and what I realized from the time I was about 8....religion sucks. Or they are brain washed, or insecure, or a hundred other excuses. Maybe, or maybe He wants that, and to be your friend.

If you noticed, I did not mention any particular religion in my OP.

As I said before, define the word worship.The bible does say to worship the Lord in EVERYTHING you do. Now if that was the Lord, and you, I would consider that worship.Jesus is the King of kings, and Lord of lords.
Psalms 82 says we are gods.
We were put here to rule the earth (greenpeace is doing that!) and to walk in the garden with our Lord, to fellowship with Him, and each other.Read acts 2 and what the disciples did when led by the Holy Spirit, and how the numbers were added to them daily.When are you going to start understanding me a little better, you have me in this bracket or something, it's like you are prejudice against anyone who believes in God.

Well, I've been as frank as I can be. I don't think religion, or worshipping god, has made you a better person. Pardon the pun, but I think you've traded in your illegal drugs for the legal ones.I'm sorry, I just don't think you're a good parent... or a community leader. I fear for the future of our society because you are a contributer. Between phat's war on other people's sex lives, nem_jug's continual comparason of gay people and animal, and your "hate the sin, love the sinner" BS, I haven't seen anything that would convince me that believing in god would make me a better person. I mean, come on, I'm the atheist here and you guys are the christians. You're suppose to be better than me, not the other way around. You're suppose to be the people who would fight for human rights and I'm suppose to be the bad guy who tries to take away human rights, not the other way around.What I'm trying to say in too many words is if you really want atheists like me to consider the existence of god, you should look to yourself and your fellow christians and see what actions you can take or what deeds you can do to convince us that believing in a deity would make us better people. Instead, you are all preaching the same message of hate with different words. The difference between nem_jug's position and your own is almost the same as the difference between Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson. Fred Phelps calls for the extermination of gay people while Pat pretends to be more tolerant and only wanted to stigmatize them. Both are sending the same message using different words.I'm really sorry, everytime I see one of you talk about god, I just can't get past all the BS that I see you guys do and say about other people who have never done you any harm.

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Your self-centric world view is showing. You say "Regardless or our religion" but in this same sentence you mention the trappings of your religion.Are you saying that just prior to death a Muslim acknowledges Jesus? A Buddhist, Hindu?In fact, maybe in this idea, you have single handedly demonstrated the faulty view of God as described in the bible. Follow this logic:Christians worship Christ, Muslims worship Allah, Buddhist worship (sort of) Budda, Hindu's worship their gods. All these Godly seeking people seem to find the God of their upbringing in overwhelmingly large percentages. If what you say is true, you would find large defections from counterfeit religions to yours, since we are created to worship the God - of your selection.If we are created to worship God, and the God of the Bible is the correct vision of God, and God actively works in the world, then why does the advancement of this meme... errr... religion require active humanly involvement? Why is the "great commision" even required.Why when Christian missionaries first paddle their canoes to remote regions, are they not greeted by people who have found the God that corresponds to your view.Actually when examining most early or privative cultures you find some rather distasteful common themes. Things like sacrifice (human and animal), strict male hierarchy, ethnocentric (ei God helps us kill our enemies), superstition (nonsensical control of the environment). These are the innate properties of religious expression. Do these spring from the "belief that we are all created to worship God"?Edited by iceage, : No reason given.