Atheists: Do you EVER have doubts? (evolution, religions, divine, science)

[RiippaKiwi]

No .

[nana053]

Originally Posted by Kansarado

Now, I don't like to make assumptions, but I assume you don't believe in an afterlife and you certainly don't believe you have any consequences for your actions on earth when you die, correct?

At least in the sense that what you did on earth will be used to determine your fate in the afterlife because if my assumption is correct, you don't believe in an afterlife; therefore, you have no ultimate consequences.

With that said, if what I stated is accurate, what would you say the point of life is?

I don't believe in an afterlife, but there are consequences for every action here in this life.

The point of life is simply to live. Why would you need some other point?

[mephie]

Originally Posted by Kansarado

Now, I don't like to make assumptions, but I assume you don't believe in an afterlife and you certainly don't believe you have any consequences for your actions on earth when you die, correct?

At least in the sense that what you did on earth will be used to determine your fate in the afterlife because if my assumption is correct, you don't believe in an afterlife; therefore, you have no ultimate consequences.

With that said, if what I stated is accurate, what would you say the point of life is?

"Point" sounds a bit like a goal. Is life suppose to have a goal?

[Asheville Native]

Originally Posted by Kansarado

With that said, if what I stated is accurate, what would you say the point of life is?

We are just another species that evolved here, and the propagation of our species is our goal, just like the dog at my feet, or the squirrel on the bird feeder outside my window.

We are not one of god's pets or special in anyway other than we have evolved a bit further, perhaps too far.

[orogenicman]

Originally Posted by Kansarado

Most people that claim to be atheists are not real atheists.

Your evidence for this claim would be?

[orogenicman]

Originally Posted by Kansarado

Now, I don't like to make assumptions, but I assume you don't believe in an afterlife and you certainly don't believe you have any consequences for your actions on earth when you die, correct?

At least in the sense that what you did on earth will be used to determine your fate in the afterlife because if my assumption is correct, you don't believe in an afterlife; therefore, you have no ultimate consequences.

With that said, if what I stated is accurate, what would you say the point of life is?

Life is hardwired to grow more life. So the primary purpose of life is to survive long enough to reproduce. Every species (without exception) of life on this planet is hardwired for this purpose. It is a defining characteristic of life on Earth. And so there certainly are consequences whether or not we believe in an afterlife, plenty of them. If we don't reproduce, our genes don't get passed on to the next generation. If we destroy ourselves and/or this planet with all of our petty behaviors, we will undeniably go extinct. No ultimate consequences? You haven't been paying close enough attention, have you?

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by Hueffenhardt

...all this doesn't mean that I am close minded.

√ I constantly seek out and read things that are critical of my current beliefs and that offer different perspectives and alternatives, because

√ if I am wrong, the only way I'll ever find out is by reading materials that can show me I'm wrong.

√ So, I am open to the possibility I could be wrong, but I have no doubts at the present time.

Well stated, and my sentiments exactly. Those who refuse to openly and willingly examine their own beliefs continuously (or at last up to the age of, say, 95+, when other more pressing things infiltrate into your consciousness... or your Depends™)

Originally Posted by Theophane

I don't think you will ever have any. Your dogmatic atheism won't let you.

Oh p*s$ off, you vastly illiterate hypocrite. By comparison, your brand of vast intransigence, proven time and again by your closed-minded unwilingness to answer even the simplest philosophical questions is legend here. Your only position is that unless we all buy into your Godly vision, we're all social and intellectual failures, and doomed at that. How tiresome , oh and ineffective in an honest debating environment.

You might want to seek help?

Note: by popular & intellectual vote, my assessment of you is hardly a onesy!

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

It is telling that one who has explained his reasoning and open - mindedness and in the past that same reasoning and open - mindedness that required him to question what he was expected to believe without question is dismissed as dogmatic by one who would never admit to having any real doubt, ever, on any account, no matter what evidence was presented.

Next:

Originally Posted by mephie

"Point" sounds a bit like a goal. Is life suppose to have a goal?

Only in that's what you're first "innocently" taught, to be accepted as truth without question! But then, the next scripted question in Sunday School or religious college is "Well then, what is that goal? Anyone? Anyone?" [note the prior assumption that there must be a goal...].

Followed by the obligatory stand-up comic's great sense of timing, when the so-called "teacher" (noting that real teachers are supposed to be objective as a Prime Directive, right? In Sunday School and religious colleges they violate this every week, on purpose...) pauses, gauges the audience's reaction, and then intones [with grand and holy authority no less..]:

"It's God's will that we serve Him, and make His Presence and Glory known to all those who would otherwise be lost without a spiritual "goal"!"

And so there you have it! Why bother to question such irrefutable & serial logic, right?

Fact is, aside from the following simple explanation, there is no higher purpose nor goal in this life. You adopt & define those acording to your personal needs or worse, the directive thinking of others, those with a proven agenda of subjugation.

Originally Posted by orogenicman

Life is hardwired to grow more life. So the primary purpose of life is to survive long enough to reproduce. Every species (without exception) of life on this planet is hardwired for this purpose. It is a defining characteristic of life on Earth. And so there certainly are consequences whether or not we believe in an afterlife, plenty of them. If we don't reproduce, our genes don't get passed on to the next generation. If we destroy ourselves and/or this planet with all of our petty behaviors, we will undeniably go extinct. No ultimate consequences? You haven't been paying close enough attention, have you?

[rifleman]

I have shrugged off "doubt" per se, as something we'd all never get over in anything we do or think in our lives.

* Will my car start this morning? I JUST DON'T KNOW, and it's driving me crazy!

Or..

* Will I live a long and happy life? I JUST DON'T KNOW. etc. etc."

And so on down a rather infinitely long list of potential doubt issues.

Those of us who bother to think about our personal philosophies (noting that many in this world simply do not bother to question anything!), eventually come to some sort of Final Answer conclusion, more or less. (Most of us who have done this introspection at length, and arrive at some philosophically defensible "working final conclusion", are in our >40s age at a minimum. In my case, it's >> 60 yrs of age...).

We have thus decided, for rational, functional and objective reasons, to come to some conclusion, though we should also be open to possible later revision if the evidence demands it.

In my case, it's that I continue to see absolutely no need nor evidence for your particular God(z), a decision which in no way impedes my life. In fact, that firm belief improves my life and happiness significantly. I should therefore doubt that obvious advantage?

Hardly.

Q: why do you not re-consider and become a functional atheist for a while? You might be surprised at the sense of liberation it can bring! Of course, the guilt associated with that determination, especially if you are a Muslim, or if you are not a truly individualistic thinker, might bring you to a spiritual nemesis! It's not good to lose your head over this after all...

[dtango]

Originally Posted by firstborn888

That is, doubts about your atheism? Ever?

Yes. Definitely “yes”!
Real atheists, hard core atheists, are extremely few. Most atheists are virtually agnostics, their dogma being “I do not know” so how can there be no doubt.
Richard Dawkins himself is an agnostic. He wrote in “The God’s Delusion”:

“I’d be surprised to meet many people in category 7, but I include it for symmetry with category 1, which is well populated.”

Category 1 = Hard core theists
Category 7 = Hard core atheists.

“I count myself in category 6, but leaning towards 7 – I am agnostic only to the extend that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden,” he wrote, but never said or wrote “I know there is no God”. Atheists know there is no God because they know that God is just a joke.

So-called atheists believe that they know everything about gods, deities and religion but they do not, because they never cared to learn. Richard Dawkins being the best example. He believes –just out of faith as theists believe- exactly what forum member Tilli says that he believes:

Originally Posted by tilli

I am quite sure that every religion on earth, every diety ever conceived, is a product of the imagination of humanity. No other explanation makes any sense.

Both Dawkins and Tilli have a right to say so! Campbell, referring to the world’s cultural traditions wrote:

“And though many who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition rationally scrutinize and disqualify the sacraments of others, an honest comparison immediately reveals that all have been built from one fund of mythological motifs.”
–variously selected, organized, interpreted, and ritualized, according to local need, but revered by every people on earth.

A fascinating psychological, as well as historical, problem is thus presented. Man, apparently, cannot maintain himself in the universe without belief in some arrangement of the general inheritance of myth.
[…]
And why should it be that whenever men looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination?”

The original “fund of mythological motifs” was the product of an “immemorial imagination.”
That is a reasonable assertion because Native Americans so much as ancient Sumerians, Greeks and Japanese share the same mythological motifs.
The “immemorial imagination” part of the theory is based on the fact that the American Indians were separated from the rest of the planet’s inhabitants for 14,000 years.

Campbell did err a little bit in his logic but let us not discuss that now.
Scholars as well as laymen would readily agree on the existence of an original fund of mythological motifs but will refuse to attribute it to an immemorial imagination. They prefer the entirely illogical thesis that native Americans and Ancient Greeks just imagined the same stories about gods (the gods, for example, were not capable of producing humans the way they wanted and had to destroy them and try again several times).

Ask your self how do you explain the existence of the original fund of mythological motifs!

[tilli]

He believes –just out of faith as theists believe- exactly what forum member Tilli says that he believes:

Forum member tilli is a SHE, thank you very much. If you had bothered to read everything I wrote in that post and the later one, you'd see that I am a level 6 on the Dawkin's scale (since it is impossible to prove a negative or a "sortagod") and I arrive at my conclusion via reason, not faith. As for the rest of your silliness, I find it quite interesting how regularly new members crop up in this forum, totally obsessed with Joseph Campbell. Yeh, we also read it when we took Religion 101. Care to fess up to your old identify?

However I do stand behind the statement you quoted. All the dieites dreamed up by man are just that. Dreams. Fantasies. Fables used as fulcrums against the mind.

Ask your self how do you explain the existence of the original fund of mythological motifs!

Imagination. Communication. Voila!