Comments on: How I Became An Atheist

By: 40 Year Old Atheist

40 Year Old Atheist — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:44:23 +0000

@Angelo: It’s curious that you noticed part of what I wrote and ignored the rest.

What I said in a nutshell is that some things triggered a reaction (“religion doesn’t seem to be adding up”) which led to an extended period of reading and investigation.

In the end, I concluded – based on many reasons – that your god (i.e. a personal deity involved in the daily ongoings of human beings) does not exist. Most notable among my reasons for not believing in god are lack of evidence and poor responses to the problem of evil.

Your comment adds no new food for thought on the matter.

By: angelo custode

angelo custode — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:33:53 +0000

The fact that you met your future wife after a prayer to God was not enough for you? Sure bad things happen to us, me, everyone. God loves to bless his people. He also has the ability to take anything away from us, and not give us anything we want. We see right now. He sees 5 minutes, 1 week, 1 year, 50 years, 100 years from now. He works in all of our lives distinctively to bring his plan to come. The fact that you are debating about God shows something is working in your mind ABOUT God subconciously. God is going to keep knocking, even if you keep saying he doesn’t exist. The fact that you go out of your way to say he does not just because the world is not perfect (have you read the bible? I recently have read a lot and it says in there that this world is a FALLEN world where bad things DO happen! Even with God in control! Until the day he comes back. Which could be right now, tomorrow, or 50-100 years or more from now!). Keep on keeping on, I hope the right answer comes to you!

By: 40 Year Old Atheist

40 Year Old Atheist — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:51:53 +0000

@gildedmushroom: What the hell are you talking about? They were part of an idiotic religion (more idiotic than most) with access to me when I was a child. They tried to indoctrinate me/us. It did not work. Even then, I was smart enough to know it was bullshit.

By: gildedmushroom

gildedmushroom — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:47:33 +0000

You ran away from the experiences you had with your uncle and aunt. I think you should return to what happened there, and become knowledgeable about it. Not external facts, but internal research.

By: Alaina

Alaina — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:39:55 +0000

40YOA, nice blog. Glad I found it. I’m Canajun, too.
What I see over and over in these debates is that people don’t understand what science is. Science is NOT the answer and does not pretend to have the answers. It is a process, not a thing. Perhaps the media and popular representations of science make it seem that way, but no scientist worth anything would claim that they are the ultimate arbiters of Truth.
I can sum up why I love science in six words: “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Science represents our best current understanding of how the universe works, and gives us a roadmap for advancing that understanding. There are many things that we don’t know, and I can use an example an earlier commenter offered: Where did the universe come from? Well, our best models and the current evidence point toward an inflationary Big Bang, but we don’t know for sure. What happened before the big bang? We don’t know – one idea is that it was the collision of two d-branes that created enough energy to cause a Big Bang; another is that there is a never-ending cycle of expansion and collapse; another is that we’re inside a black hole, and that every black hole contains a universe, to a point of infinite regress. We have a pretty good sense of how the Big Bang happened, but not why it happened. That’s right: we don’t know.
THIS is why science is cool: because we can say “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Science require evidence and falsifiability. If we simply accepted claims with no evidence, we might still believe that the earth was flat and the centre of the universe, or that sin causes disease. “I don’t know” lets us advance our knowledge rather than being stuck in the Iron Age. It permits a humble search for truth, and history shows us that it is the most useful approach for understanding the world.
I think the belief that we have all of the answers (i.e., God did it, the end) is the pinnacle of narcissistic arrogance and hubris.

By: Alexis Mullino

Alexis Mullino — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:38:23 +0000

I can’t help but comment on how Richard Dawkins did such a great thing for the world, greater than I think he ever envisioned while writing The God Delusion. I’ve read and heard so many stories where people struggled all their lives–or didn’t at all–and came to conclusions on their beliefs because of his book. That’s amazing to me. Like you, I am one that found concrete results in my concepts and ideas of God by reading The God Delusion, and I’m not even done with it yet.

By: Renshia

Renshia — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:09:31 +0000

By looking at the way it quoted, I would say you did not put enough spaces between the two sections, at least threelines seem to work best. when you highlight the section you want to quote start from the end of that section and go up to highlight it all. then hit the quote button.
don’t give up, learning something new even if it is a challenge is a great way to expand your perspective.
Do you know how to highlight the text?

By: MJ

MJ — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:52:37 +0000

Hi Pop sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. First thanks for being a good sport and having the discussion – I feel it’s very important we learn to talk and listen to one another.

Two other things. firast you can get something from nothing. In physics, a balance of positive and negative is zero or nothing. For example an atom with one proton and one electron is considered zero but you can have a case where the electron goes to one side of the atom and creates a positive and a negative thus creating something from nothing. So I wouldn’t agree with you – I think you might have been referring to the conservation of energy where matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

Second, my understanding was that Jesus was a practicing Jew and that his attempts were to reform Judaism. And furthermore, the Bible can’t be taken as a definitive biography of Jesus because huge parts of his Jesus’ life are not covered nor are all his thoughts explored or stated. the other thing is the Bible has been edited several times and there are many, many chances for mistranslations – to view it as the Gospel truth is dangerous. 40 YOA has a book on here titled Misquoting Jesus which explains quite nicely what those errors are. Keep on your hunt.

By: Pop

Pop — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:50:28 +0000

Obviously, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on a lot of this stuff. The main reason I came on here was because (not any of you) most atheists I have talked to have done a lot of Christian bashing. Just like I’m sure that you feel a lot of Christians have belittled you and tried to make you feel like crap for not believing in God. I basically wanted to talk with some atheists that weren’t complete buttholes anytime I asked a sincere question about how they felt about certain things. I appreciate all the comments and discussion, but I’m going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks, so I probably won’t get a chance to be back on here for a while. Thanks for putting up with my questions, as I truly do enjoy commenting with all of you.
I guess the bottom line is, you’re waiting on evidence to prove that there’s a God – and I believe the evidence is already pointing to God. Again, thanks for the discussions. Talk to ya soon.

By: Pop

Pop — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:38:48 +0000

I’m terrible with technology…I give up on blockquotes.