A question for Christians AND atheists

[imported_luckyme]

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Because life without afterlife is awfully pointless.

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you asked for a reason to believe in something and I gave you probably the most universal and fundamental one, one that forms the foundation of my belief in Christ.

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Absolutely! I don't know anyone who believes because of what Aquinas said. I know lots ( my family situation is like Lestat's only likely larger) that believe based on versions of this.."Do you believe in an afterlife?" "Yes, there has to be more than this."

IOW, the bulk of belief is psychologically driven, not research-based. Another common one is the need for moral guardrails, the "we'll all turn into Sons of Sam" fear (hmmm, ok, scratch him) in spite of Japan and europe's example.

So, if you're a person that runs more on logic and seem to have no problem finding moral solidity without threats or rewards, and find the love and caring of those around you has a lot of meaning the 'need' for a religion is minimal to non-existant.

I was around 8 when "who made me - good made me. who made god - god always was and always will be." sounded a bit soft to me. Around 13 I ran across Frasers "the golden bough" and the cultural lights came on, I could understand how there could be all this religion even if there were no god, and of course the xtrian precursors were obvious.

I'm an atheist today only secondarily because of the 'no evidence' or 'logical conflicts' reasons. Mine's based on morality issues, to try to state part of it simply, I have the reverse-NR view, there can be no morality if it is absolute or coerced.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">No, I can't. And that is why I would never claim that I knew for certain that your pizza does not have anchovies on it. </font>

Why would you claim Christ is the son of God and not that there are anchovies on my pizza? What is the difference?

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Why would you claim Christ is the son of God

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Because the Gospels, among others, said (wrote) so, and I believe them.

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and not that there are anchovies on my pizza?

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I never said there were or were not anchovies on your pizza. I said I wouldn't claim with utter certainty that there were not, simply because it didn't seem possible or make sense to me that the anchovies existed.

[Lestat]

See this:

<font color="blue">Can you prove to me that Jesus was not the Son of God? </font>

Sounds like you're putting the onus on me to disprove something that you have thought long and hard about and have come to know as fact, when this:

<font color="blue">Because the Gospels, among others, said (wrote) so, and I believe them. </font>

Would have been a much simpler and more accurate answer.

Why not just say the latter in the first place, instead of insuinating that if your belief cannot be disproved it must mean I am the one using faulty reasoning?

[hmkpoker]

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Because life without afterlife is awfully pointless.

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Please elaborate.

This is a personal, perhaps too personal, account of my conversion to atheism. If it's a little melodramatic, that's probably cause I've had a few beers.

I'm a recently converted atheist. As a youth I was a devout Christian raised in a Protestant household. I didn't just numbly follow church teachings, I had a very close and sacred relationship with God at certain points in my life. There were times when I felt without a doubt that Someone up there existed.

After my fundamentalist youth I broke from strict Christian teachings. Instead, I felt that all religions had something to say about God and gave similar guidelines for life. I studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and after it all I thought I was gaining spiritual understanding. I felt that Christianity was only a limited version of Truth and as I explored further I came to believe in a different God. I couldn't describe this Being but I felt for certain It existed. I saw all religions as just man's way of explaining what was evident in the human spirit. For me, no hell could exist and life could not be as meaningless as Christianity makes it out to be. Therefore, I did consider the Hindu cycle of life as a possible posthumous explanation.

Anyway, I've gotten off topic, but I'm trying to explain the evolution of my thought, if anyone even cares. By this point I had started reading philosophy, and Nietzsche was one philosopher who always struck me as fascinating. I had read him when I was religious and had failed to see the strength of his arguments. I had also failed to seriously consider evolution, and the psychology of my faith. The latter is the biggest reason I am an atheist now. I had to think very carefully about what religion was doing to my psyche.

During every hard time in my life I would always turn to God. But in my healthiest and most vibrant times, God was only in the deepest recesses of my mind. But as time ticked and life got harder, God would keep moving up to the forefront of my mind, so that eventually I could not allow myself any healthy or fun times. I was focused only on the negative aspects of life. There is no question in my mind that religion did this to me. It Forced me to be compassionate; if I was enjoying myself I thought of others who weren't as fortunate. And because of this miserable state I was in, I wanted everyone else to have to feel the same way. I thought it was the Right thing to do, and all should do it.

As a result, I thought all life was meaningless suffering. People say religion offers an explanation for this. To me now, religion as an explanation is absurd. It's a crutch, nothing more. And it nearly killed my desire for life. It made me a weak and pathetic individual, incapable of participating in the affairs of daily life. I was very depressed for a long time. Finally, after realizing that there is no God I can live a fruitful life.

Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did and we all do from time to time. It's comforting to think there is an all-knowing being out there. It's not reasonable, though. I'd rather live honestly than blissfully. Then again, my religious days were anything but blissful.

As I say, thank God there isn't one.

I take it you are an unfettered, unapologetic capitalist?

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Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did

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Factually incorrect.

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I'd rather live honestly than blissfully.

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It's unfortunate that you suffered from depression, but certainly you must know there are plenty of Christians who live honest and blissful lives.

[imported_luckyme]

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Faith and religion were invented by people who felt the same weaknesses I did

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Factually incorrect.

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Actually, all the evidence is that since recorded history people have pretty much had the same emotions, relationship problems, ambition, greed, love, whatever. I've alway enjoy reading Ancient Greeks complaining about how teenagers of the day are not of the quality of 'our' generation. Very contemporary.
Even what little we can glean from prehistoric people, same-old same-old seems the order of the day.

[Lestat]

I know this isn't the psychology forum, but I think these are very good posts. If nothing else, it shows that many atheists aren't the born heathens that many of the theists on here think we are. Quite the contrary. We were brought up to believe much of the same things they were and it's not always easy breaking free of the (albeit false), security that religion provides. We were able to break away from the religious dogma and have arrived where we are now, not through scoffing (ahem, NotReady), but through sensible logical conjecture

Our stories are similar. Religion always depressed me. When I finally realized the truth it was like becoming alive for the first time.

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Because life without afterlife is awfully pointless.

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Please elaborate.

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Otiose, senseless, purposeless. Anything that I do that contains any purpose (including such things as investing, studying, working out) is done in context of the future.

Would you go to work on Monday if you knew you were not going to get a paycheck on Friday? Would you make personal plans for a month from now if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?

I a) try to do the right things, and b) drink a cup of wine and eat a loaf of bread the first Sunday of each month in preparation for my inevitable death, hopefully many decades from now.