princy80:
Your soul and your spirit must have a destination. There are many locations outside this physical realm. Not necessarily heaven and "hell".

Where's my soul? Where is it right now and what purpose is it serving in my daily life?

Ranchhoddas:
Totally disagree.

You believe in an afterlife?

...they don't.

enilove:


Your are wrong.

It is God sacrificed His Son to save us from destruction

Are god and jesus one? Or completely separate?

which we brought upon ourselves by disobeying God.

Who is "we"? Why should the entire human race be responsible for what two people supposedly did thousands of years ago? How is that a just system?

because He loves us

Then why does hell exist?

Any reward or punishment we humans may ever experience, will only take place between birth and death. Once we die, both the most sinister criminal, and the most kind-hearted innocent, will share the same fate. Our bodies and brains, entirely composed of various atoms and molecules, will decompose. Through this process of decomposition, those atoms that once made "us", will go on to nourish other organisms, continuing this ongoing cycle of life which began far before any of us were born, and will continue far after we pass away.

No one has to worry about eternal torture. Eternal paradise is also a fantasy. Enjoy life, do well onto others, and tap into the richest fruits of human existence you are able to access. Become the type of person you wish you could be best friends with. Learn about the world, learn to meditate and break through any conditioning that may be holding you back from inner peace and joy. Make peace with the circle of life. Don't waste this precious opportunity of existence.

felixomor:


[img]http://1.bp..com/-35o_6VgsPhw/TZcPWfbeqbI/AAAAAAAAARI/bNy0pVD2xlI/s1600/33599_156851587677656_105811639448318_395605_33825_n.jpg[/img]

That doesn't even describe atheism lol. What a failure of a meme.

Not believing in a god says nothing about how you think the universe came about other than you don't think a god did it.

I have faith that reciting lines from my favorite storybook out loud will instantly transport me into a fantasy world of bliss and merryment. I don't have any valid evidence that it would work. But I choose to have faith in it because I want to go so, so badly!

Do you think my choice to have faith in this idea, has any effect on whether I can truly access this fantasy world or not?

6barz:

While i can say this OP is succinct, i must however point out the hypocrisy of the "I don't know." statement. As an Atheist, you are also guilty of the same assertion that you have labeled Christianity with.

Can you, dalaman say authoritatively that no God (whatever that means to anyone) exists? of course you cannot!

Believe it or not, most atheists don't claim to be 100% positive that no god exists. Even Richard Dawkins considers himself a 6 on a scale of 1 through 7 of unbelief, 6 being something like "It is very unlikely that any god exists". Most atheists, including on this forum, are agnostic-atheists. We lack belief in gods, but do not claim 100% knowledge of one's existence or lack thereof.

But you see, that still leaves an incredibly tiny sliver of room for what most theists claim to be true. Not only do Christians, Muslims, Jews etc. say they know a god exists, but the god they claim exists also has very specific attributes and deeds and ritualistic requirements attributed to it.

Outside the purview of Abrahamic religions, you cannot prove to me that no God (whatever that means to anyone) exists. Your rejection of Christianity or Islam does not in anyway invalidate the evidence or existence of that who we speak about.

Well, if you think a god exists, and you don't have proof of it, how can you even know what kind of "god" it is? How can you know it has any desire to be involved in your personal affairs, or has any relevance to you whatsoever other than the initiation of the universe we live in?

But the funny thing is instead of saying you do not know, you state that God does not exist. If i ask you for proof, I am sure it will be limited to your perception of what you think God is and should be, what you think he has failed to do and what you think he should have done.

Most of us are debating with Christians and Muslims, and their God concepts are defined in the bible and quran. What you're saying "we atheists think god is" is actually what members of Abrahamic religions believe god is. We're just going off of their definition.

If you have a different definition of god that you think is more valid than the Christian or Muslim version, then please feel free to share it.

Blogthug:


what evidence do u have that natural objects created themselves ? or do u have faith that they did?

When did I say that?

daamazing:
Seun, this pic says a lot.

Well this is a pretty silly meme considering that the first 3 things are, by definition, man-made objects while the last thing is a natural object.

We have evidence that human beings make man-made objects. We have NO evidence of any conscious being creating natural objects (that's simply an assumption borne from human ignorance/bias, and then passed down through generations). And we know for a fact that natural objects like rock masses and bodies of water form over time through non-supernatural processes like sedementation and erosion.

felixomor:


Please which moral principle did budha create?

And please i want u to stay on budha,
Dont jump away o...
If u jump, we will know u r lying....

Please answer..

Wow, really? This is proof that you're very ignorant about other belief systems and philosophies :/ Which seems to be quite common for religious people on NL.

felixomor:



I cant see any statement of time there

Besides facts dont use the phrase "would have" in any tense....
Only speculations do that....

Once again u r trying to bend your own dictionary to define "fact".....
As usual....
Just as u bend it to define "atheist" with your other monikers....

Its a common feature of yours now....

What would a time change about the validity his argument? You're trying to distract from the central argument and it's really annoying lol. Stop doing that and learn how to argue honestly.

introvertme:


There are interpolations by bias translators in the Bible, my church has agreed on that aspect.

Your church will agree on anything that protects and defends the religion, duh.

When science blatantly disproves biblical claims (like the earth standing on 4 pillars, or women not being permitted to speak above men), those claims are dubbed "biased translations" or "metaphors" by the church so the church can keep going and continue bamboozling people. It's ironic that you can't see that THAT is actually the most blatant display of bias. Heck, I'd even call it deception.

Mendelssohn:


It's only unfortunate you lack necessary interpretation ability. Unknown to you, I'm even in church as I type. You only thought I'm muslim because I said "our muslim brothers". Why can't innocent people dying everyday be replaced by a dumb ass like you.

I highly doubt that anyone else would have interpreted your post as a Christian speaking. Maybe you get a kick out of writing misleading posts and then insulting people who "fall for it".

And are you proud of the fact that you're in a church and wishing death upon someone? Talk about Christlike!

The religion section is filled with Christians that cannot refute the statements these atheists make with cogent bible verses ,and yet they go round calling themselves Christians!!

That's because many bible verses are in direct contradiction with reality. Trying to answer smart, deep questions with the bible is like trying to do physics using the Greek Mythologies as a guide. It just doesn't work. And trying to make it work makes people look foolish.

And that's why Christians continue to get their proverbial asses handed to them in arguments, not only on these forums but across the internet and slowly across the world. Because they are wrong. They're following a book of mythologies that's full of blatant inconsistencies and falsehoods.

CatfishBilly:

I'm not. What proof do you have that the earth meant the ground we walk on and not the planet that God created?

The funny thing is that even though it's obvious that he's trying to alter the message to suit his argument (when are religious people not doing this), he'd still be wrong even if the verses were referring to the earth as in the ground. The ground we walk on has been slowly shifting since the earth cooled.

gbegemaster:
Solid ground is firm! It's called earth!

It clearly said "fixed" and "immovable". If something shifts, is it still fixed and immovable?

“Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.”
Yet it shakes. And shifts, and moves, and orbits. And what exactly is it's "foundation" anyway? Spheres don't have foundations. And the liquid mantle is far from a firm foundation.

Mendelssohn:


Sure if you had talked about mohammed this way, you will certainly not live to see tomorrow. Our muslim brothers would have initiated a serious search for you to stop your existence, even today. You are an unfortunate human being.

Not everyone cares about your repressive religion or the pedophilic warlord you call Mohammad, and no one owes either any respect. Stop f**king threatening people.

Posts like these sicken me so much. And you wonder why people don't like Islam. Too many of the followers are violent, sexually repressed and always spewing out threats and talking about killing people. Why are you like this in the modern 21st century? It's like you're stuck in an extreme barbarian mindset.

gbegemaster:
Is the earth beneath your feet not firm? Or do you prefer it unstable like the ocean?

The point is that the earth isn't fixed. It moves. Not only is it spinning on it's axis, it's orbiting the sun, and our entire galaxy is moving through space as well. If you want to bring tectonic plates into the mix, those too are constantly in motion, each continent shifts a few inches every year.

Nothing about earth, let alone this entire universe is "firm and immovable" like the bible claims.

Great post. And I'm happy for you for getting the help you needed

I love your icecream challenge at the end. It's very true. The brain is a pattern-seeking machine, in psychology it's called "top down processing", looking at your surroundings & experiences through the lense of whatever is already in your mind. We all do it. What you feed your senses, your brain will automatically seek out more of.

Since superstition is feeding the minds of many Nigerians still, it's no wonder that witch accusations and "encounters" are still happening :/ Thankfully enlightened individuals like yourself are breaking out of that mind trap, seeing the situation for what it is, and turning to appropriate psychiatric assistance rather than harmful superstitious answers.

Omudia11:

Anyone who dies in their sin CANNOT inherit God's kingdom.

Right, which means as long as you pray before dying, regardless of what you did in the past you are good. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

All a sinner needs do is repent fully and develop a relationship with God. then and only then will that lifestyle of sin be disconnected from him.

Until they sin again. Then pray again. Then sin again. Then pray again.

Omudia11:
When thousands of archeological evidence have been proven to support biblical descriptions over several decades , No? The joke is on you girl.

Where?

I have no issue with deism either, but I also don't particularly see the benefit of it other than the comfort that can come with applying agency/intentionality in the universe where there may not be.

onyenze123:

Because God is a being (living) and the universe is a thing (non-living). Living being creates non living thing.

I think this is a vastly over-simplified & human-centric outlook ("Humans make stuff so therefore a human-like living thing must have made everything" ).

Yes, most of the universe is non-living, but it consists of living things that arose only after certain non-living components were first established (sun, earth). From microbes to human beings, none would exist without the sun's fusion-generated light energy and the earth's, well, earth. And water.

And since all evidence we have in biology points to living things being a collection of non-living things working in-tandem (proteins, water, lipids, electricity etc), then it seems inaccurate to insist that the universe can't give rise to living things because it itself is nonliving. The universe is capable of a lot of very interesting things given enough time & the right circumstances. The potential to give rise to life under particular circumstances seems to be an intrinsic component of the universe itself, not seperate from it.

"God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon."
Thomas Paine

I'm sure you already know this but statements made by historical figures like Thomas Paine, however influential they may have been, can not be seen as the end all, be all to certain discussions. Especially since in their time, they were lacking information that we currently have. Many, many scientists were deists back in the day that may have been atheists today if they had a more fleshed out understanding of concepts like biological & celestial evolution.

Proudlyngwa:

The question is what is the meaning without an afterlife

Right, but that question rests directly on the assumption that an afterlife gives meaning. Which I haven't seen any reason to believe.

GrizzlyBear:
The idea of nothing after death doesn't scare me, and it's not the underlying impetus for the premise of my post. What underpins my post, is that the totality of conscious human experience actually holds no objective meaning

What would an objective meaning for the totality of conscious human experience even look like? Does the idea of one even make sense?

Religion's answer is a chance at eternal paradise, but that imo isn't any more meaningful than what we already have going on. It's just a promise of more of the "good stuff" we're already capable of experiencing on earth. Merely a grasping towards more moments of joy/pleasure/love/security than the ones we're afforded as beings with limited life spans.

Ultimate objective meaning is only a concept that exists in human minds. I'd even go as far as to say that the phrase itself is an oxymoron. Meaning necessitates subjectivity; value can only ever be attributed by a consciousness evaluating it.

and whatever label of meaning we draw from our knowledge of our world and tie around it, is subjective.

Sure, I don't see anything wrong with this.

And when you apply this arbitrary, subjective process of ascribing meaning like you are doing, then anyone could justify their actions by attributing their own subjective meaning to whatever motivated those actions.

Certainly they could justify them. That doesn't mean they'd be justifiable from the perspective of society they are a part of. As a social species, it is our nature to tend to both our individual wants and needs and those of the society we belong to. The individual and the society will never be perfectly in sync.

That isn't a cause for disaster. We can still work with it, which we have increasingly been doing as humanity has progressed. It's only religious/ideological notions that tell us there should be some perfect moral code that is totally objective regardless of time period or culture. In reality that just isn't the case, and can't be. As social creatures with complex desires and impulses that aren't always compatible, compromise is a must.

Also, degree of expectations, or lack of, that we have about our world doesn't take or add from or to the issue of objective meaning or the futile nature of our existence.

It certainly does. Our expectations paint everything we see. Even your sentiments of futility, and evaluation of lack of ultimate objective meaning as necessarily problematic, are based off of pre-existing notions about how things should "ideally" be.

Even if one accepts the grim nature of his world and doesn't hold idealistic expectations, his end is still imminent. He is still a victim of vain struggle.

I still don't agree that the nature of reality is grim. That's assuming that a life free of suffering is how things should be.

From what criteria are you judging his life as vain? Because he doesn't get to live forever afterwards? What would a non-vain reason for existing look like to you?

He is still basically a "hedonistic survival robot."

Not necessarily. Having executive function allows us to go a step further. Self-sacrifice, delayed gratification, all that good stuff. Also, pleasure and joy/peace aren't quite the same thing. A person can have peace without seeking pleasure. Look into Buddhist philosophy if you haven't already.

Everything he does is an expression of his biological programming to survive and pass on his genes. Everything he experiences in the space between birth, reproduction and death, amounts to no cosmic value or any that he perceives. If he thinks it does, then he is a casualty of illusion.

Again, what would this "cosmic value" be if it existed? How would it be expressed, what would it look like?

We are all victims of unrealistic goals. That's why we are still alive. We all strive for happiness and love and fulfillment and peace. But these are miserable hopes that are unachievable to the degree in which we seek them, and sadly, they are what's keeping us alive.

How are those things unrealistic?

They just have to be approached with a more humble and realistic perspective than the one religion provides. Which is that happiness (as in pleasurable feelings) can't be the constant state of things due to how our brains work (staying alert for threat, making comparisons, focusing on the negative during times of stress), but peace can arise naturally once you let go of the idea that life needs to be a certain "ideal" way, and do the best you can with what is here now.

We can aver that making the world a better place for ourselves is our duty, but this is just a safety net and a coping mechanism that prevents us from peering into the dark, horrifying hole of reality. Creating rules that help us live in harmony is just a means of prolonging our futile existence. It's a foolish attempt at preserving and enabling the continuation of the pain, suffering and bleak end of every member of our species.

So because pain and suffering exist, life is not worth prolonging or living? I can't see that connection. Why does the mere presence of pain have to be the defining factor of whether or not living is worth it?

I still can't see what is so horrifying about reality. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems your view is biased towards the negative for no perceivable reason. Sometimes people confuse being realistic with being unnecessarily pessimistic.

If what happens when we die is just the same as before when we are born, then why spend a lifetime marred by pain, terror, uncertainty and endless struggle for survival, tinged with a comparably small degree of fleeting happiness and pleasure, just to arrive again at this era before birth? This defines the futility of our existence.

Who says that where we arrive has to be the point?

The idea of arrival at some point of perfection, complete absence of pain or what have you, is again, made up in my opinion. It's based on an incorrect view of how nature works (intentionally for or against us, rather than being a neutral re-organization of matter and energy that actually includes us). Painting life as "futile" and "horrifying" because it doesn't meet an ideal that was never real in the first place doesn't make any sense to me.

Very interesting writeup OP, but I do believe there are different valid secular perspectives.

I personally stopped finding the idea that there may be nothing after death scary, quite quickly after becoming non-religious. I just sort of recognized that indeed the universe does not revolve around me, nor does it exist solely for my pleasure. It's been chuggling along for 14 billion years without me. My life was a chance gift, now I get to be a part of the show. It doesn't make sense, then, to take any of it for granted, the "good" or "bad".

I feel like that the main thing that might make the reality of our human condition so "depressing" to some people, is the expectation that it should be any other way than the way it is. That there should be any such thing as "eternal happiness" (via heaven or temporary experiences) and "eternal life" in the first place. That there should be a way to permanently eradicate human pain. These are unrealistic expectations that religion sets up. For example,

GrizzlyBear:
our definition and notions of morality, are relative and subjective.

Anyone who arrives at this philosophical realization, would definitely feel a painful sting of despair.

I don't think such a realization should necessarily arouse despair.

If we simply understand ourselves as animals endowed by evolution with certain capabilities like forming complex societies, then the idea that we would need to create the rules for how to best live in harmony, based on our own collective ideas, just seems normal/neutral. Not particularly painful, nor optimistic. Just the way we are.

Such understanding could engender a cascade of negative feelings that could prompt such a person to give up on life. Undoubtedly, the understanding of the objective meaninglessness of life and the futility of human existence, is the heaviest intellectual burden for man to shoulder.

Again, I think this would only be the case for someone if they were contrasting with false expectations that only exist in a religious view of the world. I'd imagine that if some one grew up being taught the following as normal:

1. Humans are animals capable of communication and living in large societies. For those societies to be functional, we must make our own rules. However evolutionarily we do have a rough innate sense of fairness, and our moral ideas tend to be heavily influenced by that.

2. Our brains attribute meaning to things based on how we interact with and think about them. What matters most to us individually may not necessarily matter to others, but the things we value sometimes intersect which allows for bonding.

Then they wouldn't see those aspects of reality as grim or an "intellectual burden". Just how things are, for a certain species on planet earth that we happen to be. Also I wouldn't call morality completely subjective or objective - at least if we keep the scope of "objective" within the human species. Morality has both biological/innate, and environmental/learned components.
`
Imagine someone telling a 5 year old child that when he's 10, he'll recieve a super amazing toy that's better than any toy he could ever think of, it has magical powers and lets him travel to different dimensions and will change his life forever. The child now his this grand expectation that one day, he'll have everything he's ever wanted & will never be sad again. Then the child turns ten, and he recieves the news or deduces for himself, that the toy doesn't exist and he's been lied to. Disappointment, grief.

But if the kid was never promised the toy, or even heard of such a toy in the first place, he would've never had to experience that disappointment. It's the same with religion vs reality.

I've noticed that people who did not grow up in religious homes, and never were exposed to ideas like heaven in any serious manner, have a much more easygoing view on death and conversations about existence. They seem more readily able to accept that life has both moments of joy and gladness, AND those of depression and bleakness, that growth and destruction are both a part of the picture.

They never had to deal with the disillusionment that the unrealistic promises of religion can lead to, because they were never fed those illusions in the first place.

The theists' arguments in this thread are embarassing. Anyone even remotely educated on world history & demographics would know they are telling bold-faced lies.

GrizzlyBear:


Well, always post your sources.
http://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/martin/natural_religion_its_strength_and_weakness.htm

And it's quite funny that you are referring to me as close minded, while you claim to be wearing the garment of open mindedness.

I am close minded, but I decided to painstakingly read the history and origin of your religion, something you haven't done before, and I compared it's history with the history of other religions and belief systems. I am close minded, but I decided to put aside the religious beliefs I was indoctrinated into, and critically examine it's contents. I am close minded but I am always open to ideas that conflict with the ones I hold dear, and I am open to discussing honestly about these ideas, and open to changing my mind if I am persuaded by reason and evidence.

But you claim to be open minded, yet you view your world through the lens of a 4000 year old book, and you zealously oppose any idea that contradicts it's claims. You claim to be open minded but you openly asked every NL Christian to stop replying to my threads or clicking on them. You claim to be open minded but you always evade examining the patent flaws of your religion by making ad-hominem attacks.

You claim to be open minded, but instead of you to try to examine your precious indoctrinated beliefs using your own independent intuitions, you scour the web looking for old articles that support your views, so that you can plagiarize them.

Nailed it.

jonbellion:
Religion divides more than it unites
It's because of religion this argument is being put up
And a lot if disposable acts throughout history was approved by religion
Was it atheists they ordered the Salem witch trials
Or Diests or pantheists
Nope
Slavery was justified by religion, women's rights where suppressed. After all isn't it a disgrace for a woman to speak in church according to Paul.
I think religous people are just sad cuz they aren't allowed to have thier way as much as before
The society has started to have sense

Spot on.

Lennycool:

It is better to give no answer at all than to formulate utter rubbish. That is what religion does. It is simply the philosophy of ordinary men, their conjectures are supported without any evidence and relies only on faith, which is completely flawed.
It's an example of GIGO(garbage in garbage out)

Yep.

Sometimes I wish time machines could exist, so we in the 21st century, with all our scientific knowledge and social progress, could go back to the dusty desert communities and watch the 1st century humans who wrote these religious texts coming up with this stuff, in all their ignorance. If we showed them modern medicine & technology, they'd think WE were gods.

And yet, their ignorant hypotheses, thousands of years later, have been able to control the minds of so many simply through the power of fear, conquest, & and generational indoctrination.

Thankfully, like others have said, religion can't survive for long. Not as long as education & reason continue to prove their efficacy and superstitious ideas continue to prove more and more ridiculous.

How would an afterlife add more meaning?

GrizzlyBear:


I think some people actually do fancy labels. Some people see labels as a jet pack that lifts them to lofty intellectual zeus-like palaces, where they sit arrogantly, and smile sneeringly at the perceived unintelligence of others. Or people adopting labels because they sound cool, or because they are being adopted by cool people, and they feel like belonging to such unit.

That's why you have people adopting labels like "feminism" and "secular humanist," without fully understanding what these labels even mean, or practicing the precise tenets that these labels fundamentally espouse.

Sure, but isn't this a phenomena that occurs with nearly all labels, including "Christian"? Christians can also wear that label proudly, thinking it means they're "holy" and "special". All labels have associations, some good, some bad, some neutral depending on the person using it. At the end of the day, everyone wants to be associated with things that are considered good (it feeds the ego), so sure, some people might use their label as an indicator that they are good or special in some way. It's just another way humans try to affirm our value, to ourselves & to others.

And I don't see that as always a bad thing although I agree it can be. A person can feel good about their atheism because they're proud of themselves for thinking independently (or whatever reason) & they happen to value that, while still treating non-atheists with respect and still being open-minded. People are complex like that, so try not to get carried away with generalizations.

I'm also a fan of Sam Harris, his work on consciousness & meditation is incredibly fascinating and has been helpful to me personally. I do prefer Sam over Dawkins and the like, but I don't fault Dawkins for his perspective. I think he just has a very blunt and direct way of communicating, and he strongly values concrete evidence-based reasoning, which I'd take over emotion & superstition-based reasoning any day.

Very insightful post OP and I couldn't agree more. What's that quote again, "It's easier to fool a man than convince him that he's been fooled." Ego will prevent a lot of church-goers and prophet-followers from acknowledging the truth in what you've said here.