Am I an atheist if I don't care whether God exists or not...

...so long as someone gets me a nice pitcher of mai tai?

Half of the threads in this forum seem to be posted by those who are insistent that atheism is flawed based on tenuous logic, demanding that people answer questions about one thing or another which apparently proves God must exist (I had a Catholic upbringing, and I seem to remember the odd mention of "blind faith" - doesn't seem to mean much to the on-line Christian, but hey)...

And here I am, trying to find meaning in the world. People insist to me that God must exist, they want me to sit and pontificate with them over the minutiae of various philosophies and accuse others of evading questions that are of precisely fuck all importance, and deep down I'm just thinking: so what? So what if someone "proves" that there must be a god (and that obviously "a god" and "God" are interchangeable; apparently the specific identity of the creator is only relevant when they say it is)? No-one's ever going to prove that I should worship the creator just because they can demonstrate it might've existed.

I don't know, does anyone else get bored of this? Why do we have to defend our beliefs to a degree that some **** who's spent half his life pouring over scripture never has to? Why does an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible or philosophy make someone's opinion any more viable than the average anime geek? I probably couldn't form a coherent and concise argument concerning gay subtext in Final Fantasy VII; does that mean I'm supposed to change my life?

I'm frustrated by it. I'm sick of being accused of not having an open mind purely because I don't believe in x, y or z thing. I'm sick of having to hear from attention whores about how, because there might be a god, it must be their god and I must worship him. If there's a god/creator, I doubt very strongly that he gives a shit what I do.

Meh, it's a rant, and I'm more or less done. Fire at will.

 

So here we go again--another religious nut challenging your position. I never find that boring, but if it bothers you, I'll stop. However, when you post something arguing that there is no god, that Christianity is copied from pagan religions, etc., I don't think it unfair for believers to dispute you, as long as they do so civilly and avoid personal insults. I suppose most of us (hopefully some of us) are also trying to find meaning in the world, to test our beliefs, and to engage in intelligent discussion with others. I do think intellectual one-upsmanship can be frustrating, and I don't think that religious know-it-alls necessarily know it all, just because they may sound like it. I'm kind of amazed sometimes at how seriously some religious scholars take themselves and how insular their views are. I hope you don't take these exchanges personally, or believe that everybody who debates you disrespects you.

You make an important point that needs to be acknowledged. Often these discussions focus on whether or not some intelligent force in the universe exists, but that begs the question of what such an "intelligence" is like. Christians move too readily from First Cause or Intelligent Designer to Yaweh and Jesus. And of course you need to stick to your opinions until you, yourself, are convinced otherwise. Please understand that we will do the same.

 

Ask yourself two questions=#1-do I believe there is a god or gods?#2-Do I believe there are no god or gods?If your answer is"I don't know",to both questions,then you are an agnostic.Then ask yourself two more questions #1-Do I have faith there is a god or gods? #2-Do I have faith there are no gods or a god?#1-if yes ,you are a deist.#2-if yes you are an atheist-------voila--Believers in both cases.

 

Actually, if I pick #2 to question #2, which I do, I could be a deist, a theist, a polythiest, a pantheist, or a panentheist. I think I'm the latter.

 

Again, I'm indifferent. I don't have faith that there is no god, because I have no reason to believe that there isn't. There are a lot of things that I don't know, and I deal with not knowing whether there's a god the same way that I deal with not knowing whether the universe ceases to exist every time I go to sleep: if the result is the same whether I believe it or not, I stop caring and get on with my life. I have little basis for my faith, since I've seen little evidence. Okie is right to point out that the type of god usually being argued for in debates is one who is remarkably consistent in not fucking around with his creation, or one who is content to will the movement of every particle in a manner consistent with the laws of physics. The notion that the possibility of this god in any way evidences the jealous vengeful callous emo-kid who Christians apparently want to believe created them doesn't hold water to me. If a god existed based on the "proof" offered by metaphysical debate, there's still no evidence that he'd be anything like the one in the Bible, and indeed plenty of evidence against it.

It just kinda sucks to be lumped in with evangelical atheists. A lot of Christians seem to believe that the only people who don't believe in God are the ones that are screaming about how they should give up Christianity because IT IS ILLOGICAL!!!!!1, and think of them as amoral freaks as a result. They don't notice those who live within the rules of a society which was built on the core beliefs of the Abrahamic faiths and don't declare the lessons of the Bible worthless purely because they don't believe that they are the word of God.

 

well, if a god wants to exist that's cool with me. and if a god wants to not exist that's cool with me too. i love the idea of a god. i love that we can experience things we don't need to know jack about, nor pretend to, in order to experience them, and that much i can say, fairly safely that i have. and i love that whatever god or gods or something close enough for government work may happen to exist, is under no obligation to resemble what anyone chooses to think they know about it.

but i do whole heartedly aggree, that there are much more important questions, then whether or not one or more of them, do, in fact, exist.

i happen to lean toward something big, friendly and invisible actually existing, and giving great hugs too, but NOT toward anyone really knowing much, if anything, about it.

=^^=
.../\...

 

This might be stupid. But what is the difference between pantheism and panentheism? I've looked them up briefly, but I'm still not so sure of the difference.