Comments on: Does Majesty & Wonder Have To Come From A Creator?

By: SJP

SJP — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:39:49 +0000

Paul… it was actually supposed to be tongue in cheek, I’m glad someone picked up on it! ha.

By: 40 Year Old Atheist

40 Year Old Atheist — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:19:17 +0000

Renshia! Thanks, I’ve around – just busy and reading a lot. I love that quote above.

By: Renshia

Renshia — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:04:03 +0000

Hey 40tr old, glad to see your still live.
I think to begin with in our mental infancy this need to explain the unexplainable, did force us to some kind of god perspective. I do not think this is the case anymore.
I was doing some reading and came across something that rang true for me . It put into perspective how religion does this. I can see in my own walk, when I was a thumper how this happened.

I think they are able to block out any doubt in what they believe because they’ve internalized their indoctrination, no longer viewing it as specific ideas that have been drilled into them. They begin to experience the ideas they’ve been taught as feelings, which evolve into powerful emotional conviction.
I think that is the trick to the process. They are convinced within there own minds that they are experiencing original thought rather than those discrete ideas that have been taught to them as they grew up.
Faith is a device of self delusion,a slight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breathe life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant and the deluded, not of thinking rational men.

In reality, contradictions cannot exist. To believe in them you must abandon the most important thing you possess; your rational mind. The wager for such a bargain is your life. In such an exchange, you always lose what you have at stake.

And of all things I found it in a fantasy novel I am reading, best explanation of religion I ever found.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:56:25 +0000

“…splitting adams…”
Heh, I got a chuckle out of that inadvertent typo.

By: 40 Year Old Atheist

40 Year Old Atheist — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:55:06 +0000

Ben, it's nice to see you here! Of course, I agree with what you're saying. I tend to leave people alone. That said, part of the reason I write here is to help those who might be doubting their faith to see a different side of things they might not see among the people closest to them.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:51:04 +0000

I used to get in a fair bit of trouble in Sunday School as a child due to my incessant questioning of the whole “creation” story. Guess it was a taste of things to come.
I’m a big fan of your line of thinking, but approach it from a slightly different angle. It doesn’t really bother me if someone wants to believe some diety created everything. Great, fine. I get ticked when their belief is forced on others. Why can’t I think differently without being castigated?
I also see it as a two way street – I’ve tried harder lately to simply accept that someone might believe in God and creation. But the second they start trumpeting this I’ll still jump all up in their business.

By: 40 Year Old Atheist

40 Year Old Atheist — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:24:39 +0000

@Sir Jackson: Thanks for this comment. Well said. Douglas always had a way of putting things so beautifully and concisely, didn’t he?

By: Sir Jackson Peaks

Sir Jackson Peaks — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:22:35 +0000

I found your post to be thought provoking, so I decided to drop some feedback here. In examining history, we find that humans have always required a “reason” for everything they come across. As a result, it can be assumed, that it must be human nature to want to give credit for events and subjects we witness–even if we don’t exactly know the genesis of the event, etc. Just a few hundred years ago we humans were quick to say “it must be God!” every time the earth would rumble or a volcano erupt. Obviously, we have come further along in our understanding of such events and now have a much more reasonable answer. In fact, it is quite remarkable to see how far the human race has progressed in the capability of understanding “causes”–from thunder and Thor, to splitting adams and man. That being said, it is frightening (to me at least) when looking at what we still give a god credit for in today’s world. Yes space is remarkable, as is life and everything we find in it–but give credit to life, not some imaginary being. As Douglas Adams once stated, “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”