cptrelentless wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:31 am

Ricky Dunn wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:01 am

cptrelentless wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 5:06 am

newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2019 10:35 pm I guess the OP can be in the column of devout atheist.

Seriously, religion is also a force for good. AA and NA encourage participants to seek a higher power for the strength to overcome their addictions. Religious people tend to donate more and do more charitable acts. People with religion tend to live longer (so do married people).

Think of how many Khmer have been helped from church organizations.

You can't be a "devout" atheist. You are without theism, not adhering to a theistic belief. You can't believe in not believing.

"1. Implicit atheist (lower case atheism) is a person who has not yet learned about god(s), theism or religion. All people are born implicit atheists.
2. Explicit Atheist (upper case Atheism) is an atheist who understands what a god is and who has concluded that no such beings exist.
And another pair of terms can be used for explicit atheists:
3. Gnostic atheists are those who are sure that no gods exist of any type. They have examined the philosophical arguments against god, and conclude that it is a self-contradictory or impossible concept. See God is Logically Impossible: The Argument for Atheism from Incoherence for some arguments that gnostic atheists might make.
4. Agnostic atheists are those who do not think that god(s) exist, but, who do not think it is possible to completely disprove their possibility. Many of these atheists simply haven't given much thought to it, and are unconvinced by the arguments they have heard so far that god(s) exist.

This latter pairing makes it clear that, as with all beliefs, humans have varying degrees of certainty. Richard Dawkins' scale places theists on a scale between 1 (completely sure that god(s) exist) and 7 (completely sure of atheism). So, we have identified three basic types of atheist - implicit atheist, and two forms of explicit atheist (gnostic and agnostic)."

I'm a 7, no Gods and Jesus never existed.

Jesus did exist, you should read Verhoeven's book, Jesus of Nazareth. He just wasn't the son of god. It was an easy mistake to make. But by dictionary definition an atheist is not gnostic - gnosticism implies a belief in spiritualism, which is theistic, and is therefore not atheistic. Or agnosticism, which is the belief in no spirituality, which is not atheism, because you can believe in god but not his affects. There is only belief. Or the absence of belief.

Verhoeven's book? You're joking a movie director? I get my belief on that from PhD historians, most of all from Dr. Richard Carrier the foremost world expert on Jesus' historicity who wrote the only peer-reviewed academic scholarly book on the question, 700 pages. There is no good evidence. Go here on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism.

I simply see no need for belief in deities or other forms of higher powers to explain life or meaning.
The reason I exist isn't really an issue I need an explanation for, I do, so let's just enjoy it while it lasts. The topic can be an interesting conversation at times but in the end, so far I have never met anybody that figured out the meaning of life, so it would seem it is not essential for living it.

As for morality, it's also pretty simple, I like to be treated nicely and fairly, so I just return the favor to the people around me. In order for any society to work, we need some common ground rules for things to work smoothly. In Europe, it is to a large extent based on Christian tradition, so in that sense, I guess you could say that my morals are loosely based on Christianity, but that doesn't mean I have to do more than accept them as the glue that makes a society work.
When it gets a bit more complicated is when you spend time in cultures that have rules that contradict what you have gotten used to and see as "natural". On the one hand, it's their rules so if you are there accept them and try to follow them, on the other hand, it just seems wrong...
When it comes to the end of life and the question that so many struggles with; What comes next? I find it interesting that so many people worry about that, but they hardly ever worry about the fact that before they were born they (according to many but not all religions) didn't exist and that doesn't seem to be a great source of angst. Why would the fact that we die be an issue, except in the sense that in most cases it would have been great to have a few more years?