![theglubbening:
goodreasonnews:
reasons-greetings:
Why I am no longer a believer in God:
Belief in something is or should be a compulsion based on evidence. Any held belief I think should be based on some sort of reason; we know what is reasonable through the scientific method. We use the scientific method and benefit from it everyday, subconsciously, and we literally employ it thousands of times a day, most of the time unaware of the internal process.
The scientific method is the foundation of science, and with it we discover a rational and understandable world around us.
Make an observation: Billions of people claim belief in God. My parents make a statement of faith in God. Belief in God returns eternal rewards and bliss, while disbelief in God returns eternal separation from God and thus torment. According to the hundreds of people that surround me every day.
Define the question: Why is this happening? Not entirely sure. My original answer to this question though is simple - because God is real and has revealed himself to us through the Bible, like everyone around me is saying.
Form a hypothesis: God really did do everything in the Bible, and it is infallible. Evidence for God also exists, otherwise people would not believe in him.
Perform experiments: I research the arguments for God’s existence. I find that literally everything on earth is explainable by natural means. I discover the theory of evolution and the abounding evidence for it. I find logical inconsistencies and even contradictions in the Bible, therefore it cannot be infallible. I find scientific contradictions in the Bible as well, and historical inaccuracies. I discover abounding evidence for naturalistic explanations of reality, and none for the supernatural. After reading the responses to the philosophical arguments for God’s existence, I am also convinced that those tangents are not supported well and each of the arguments are weak, at best.
Analyze the data: Was my hypothesis right? No. It is not supported by the research results. There is not even room for faith, as faith itself falls under a logical inconsistency. (Why do you have faith? … [any answer here] … Is that your reason for faith?) Faith itself is clearly a word that describes a psychological stubbornness. It is intellectually dishonest, and it chooses to believe what it wants to believe, no matter what scientific method is used on it. Faith can therefore be the source of irrational and dangerous activity even - such as terrorist attacks.
Conclusion: Experiments (research) shows that my hypothesis was wrong. A better hypothesis that matches the results is a view that looks at the world without believing in a supernatural cause behind it.
As new evidence may yet present itself though, and the scientific method by default is a flexible mechanism, I can not fully out rule the possibility of a God of some sort or another being out there. Perhaps a deistic God - but still no evidence to support this position either.
Therefore, I am an agnostic atheist.
wow, great post.
But it relies on many flawed things: That Man does not lie to express his point (“My God is fantastic, look at this propaganda I mean true fact”), that the Bible was a direct transcription of events and lessons (even though just the Bible as we know it was transcribed by a bunch of reclusive, phobic, gullible monks being payed by the Church hundreds of years ago), that Man can only believe something that is logical and capable of being proven at the time the idea is had (Greek philosophers (I cannot for the life of me remember which) believed that everything was made of atoms thousands of years before it could be scientifically proven) or that something can only be true if it is proven.
Now, I have no problem with someone believing in God or not believing in God or having one religion or another. I really don’t care. But it’s honestly impossible to tell because the Bible itself is flawed. How can we say that God’s “week” to create the Earth wasn’t the millions of years that scientists have proven, embellished by time, foolhardy storytellers, and the fact that, fuck, if he’s the most powerful being ever, why can’t he have a sliding scale of time if he wants to? How can we say that God didn’t plan evolution, but it was too convoluted for ancient storytellers to relate, and so they just said “AND THEN GOD MADE SOME PIGS OKAY” because it’s a lot easier than saying “AND THEN GOD GUIDED THE PATH OF THE SWINE FROM THE LOWLIEST OF RATS TO THE OINKBEAST WE KNOW TODAY” in the mind of a uneducated “prophet?”
And then there’s the argument of logic. I could make all sorts of arguments about logic. Foremost being that, for one, I have no proof, outside of this post and their blog, that reasons-greetings is a real person. My observation is that their blog exists, and this post was made. Do they exist? I sure think so. I can say that, because their blog exists, there are posts on it, which usually denotes that there is typing going on, and an intelligent thought process, and an ability to interact with the world like a human being. I click through their blog, and there are writings and discussions, but I can’t really get any data from that. If I were to submit an ask, I suppose there would be an answer, which again, would be data that SOMETHING is running the blog, but how do I know that the blog’s runner is not a program, or a ghost, or a cat? There’s no real proof to suggest otherwise. So, with this data, I should be able to infer that something that may or may not be human is probably running the blog of reasons-greetings, but there just as easily could not be. But I’m going to choose to believe that they’re a human, because it’s rather rude to assume otherwise.
Basically, I don’t really care what one believes, but saying that the scientific method is going to debunk the omnipotent omniscient naked bearded man in the sky is kind of like saying that I’m going to put out a fire with my brain-waves. The two aren’t really compatible, at least, not yet.
*Christian-raised possible-god-believing argument-starting theology-dabbling lesbian AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY*
Another thing to add: if there is one thing that has been drilled into my brain in all my science classes in college (and I’m a Bio major, so that’s quite a few), it’s that science is not based on belief. Science is based upon testable fact and what has been shown to be true. Belief by definition is based upon feelings, not facts.
My point is that religion, regardless of what religion you practice, is based on belief. Science doesn’t even come into it. Anyone is capable of both understanding and accepting science and believing in a religion. For the most part I understand and even accept the argument given—but it’s that first paragraph that gets me.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx8hd0yCt61r7gnv0o1_500.jpg)
Why I am no longer a believer in God:
Belief in something is or should be a compulsion based on evidence. Any held belief I think should be based on some sort of reason; we know what is reasonable through the scientific method. We use the scientific method and benefit from it everyday, subconsciously, and we literally employ it thousands of times a day, most of the time unaware of the internal process.
The scientific method is the foundation of science, and with it we discover a rational and understandable world around us.
Make an observation: Billions of people claim belief in God. My parents make a statement of faith in God. Belief in God returns eternal rewards and bliss, while disbelief in God returns eternal separation from God and thus torment. According to the hundreds of people that surround me every day.
Define the question: Why is this happening? Not entirely sure. My original answer to this question though is simple - because God is real and has revealed himself to us through the Bible, like everyone around me is saying.
Form a hypothesis: God really did do everything in the Bible, and it is infallible. Evidence for God also exists, otherwise people would not believe in him.
Perform experiments: I research the arguments for God’s existence. I find that literally everything on earth is explainable by natural means. I discover the theory of evolution and the abounding evidence for it. I find logical inconsistencies and even contradictions in the Bible, therefore it cannot be infallible. I find scientific contradictions in the Bible as well, and historical inaccuracies. I discover abounding evidence for naturalistic explanations of reality, and none for the supernatural. After reading the responses to the philosophical arguments for God’s existence, I am also convinced that those tangents are not supported well and each of the arguments are weak, at best.
Analyze the data: Was my hypothesis right? No. It is not supported by the research results. There is not even room for faith, as faith itself falls under a logical inconsistency. (Why do you have faith? … [any answer here] … Is that your reason for faith?) Faith itself is clearly a word that describes a psychological stubbornness. It is intellectually dishonest, and it chooses to believe what it wants to believe, no matter what scientific method is used on it. Faith can therefore be the source of irrational and dangerous activity even - such as terrorist attacks.
Conclusion: Experiments (research) shows that my hypothesis was wrong. A better hypothesis that matches the results is a view that looks at the world without believing in a supernatural cause behind it.
As new evidence may yet present itself though, and the scientific method by default is a flexible mechanism, I can not fully out rule the possibility of a God of some sort or another being out there. Perhaps a deistic God - but still no evidence to support this position either.
Therefore, I am an agnostic atheist.
wow, great post.
But it relies on many flawed things: That Man does not lie to express his point (“My God is fantastic, look at this propaganda I mean true fact”), that the Bible was a direct transcription of events and lessons (even though just the Bible as we know it was transcribed by a bunch of reclusive, phobic, gullible monks being payed by the Church hundreds of years ago), that Man can only believe something that is logical and capable of being proven at the time the idea is had (Greek philosophers (I cannot for the life of me remember which) believed that everything was made of atoms thousands of years before it could be scientifically proven) or that something can only be true if it is proven.
Now, I have no problem with someone believing in God or not believing in God or having one religion or another. I really don’t care. But it’s honestly impossible to tell because the Bible itself is flawed. How can we say that God’s “week” to create the Earth wasn’t the millions of years that scientists have proven, embellished by time, foolhardy storytellers, and the fact that, fuck, if he’s the most powerful being ever, why can’t he have a sliding scale of time if he wants to? How can we say that God didn’t plan evolution, but it was too convoluted for ancient storytellers to relate, and so they just said “AND THEN GOD MADE SOME PIGS OKAY” because it’s a lot easier than saying “AND THEN GOD GUIDED THE PATH OF THE SWINE FROM THE LOWLIEST OF RATS TO THE OINKBEAST WE KNOW TODAY” in the mind of a uneducated “prophet?”
And then there’s the argument of logic. I could make all sorts of arguments about logic. Foremost being that, for one, I have no proof, outside of this post and their blog, that reasons-greetings is a real person. My observation is that their blog exists, and this post was made. Do they exist? I sure think so. I can say that, because their blog exists, there are posts on it, which usually denotes that there is typing going on, and an intelligent thought process, and an ability to interact with the world like a human being. I click through their blog, and there are writings and discussions, but I can’t really get any data from that. If I were to submit an ask, I suppose there would be an answer, which again, would be data that SOMETHING is running the blog, but how do I know that the blog’s runner is not a program, or a ghost, or a cat? There’s no real proof to suggest otherwise. So, with this data, I should be able to infer that something that may or may not be human is probably running the blog of reasons-greetings, but there just as easily could not be. But I’m going to choose to believe that they’re a human, because it’s rather rude to assume otherwise.
Basically, I don’t really care what one believes, but saying that the scientific method is going to debunk the omnipotent omniscient naked bearded man in the sky is kind of like saying that I’m going to put out a fire with my brain-waves. The two aren’t really compatible, at least, not yet.
*Christian-raised possible-god-believing argument-starting theology-dabbling lesbian AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY*
Another thing to add: if there is one thing that has been drilled into my brain in all my science classes in college (and I’m a Bio major, so that’s quite a few), it’s that science is not based on belief. Science is based upon testable fact and what has been shown to be true. Belief by definition is based upon feelings, not facts.
My point is that religion, regardless of what religion you practice, is based on belief. Science doesn’t even come into it. Anyone is capable of both understanding and accepting science and believing in a religion. For the most part I understand and even accept the argument given—but it’s that first paragraph that gets me.
