What do atheists think of a religion without God?

more intelligent than religious people.

1. RELIGION – This was man made and so were the religious texts. Religion is important but not essential.

2. GOD – For the question ‘ Do you believe in God’ ? the answer must be “What is your definition of God” ?

???

Yes, I am an atheist.

I believe men created religion and men created God.

Why are there so many religions in this world? Some more with different teachings from one another. Whoever created the religion created it to suit their objectives and agenda.

For example, Buddha never preached any religion and he insisted his followers not to build idols of him but his followers still do that. Who founded Buddhism? His followers, not Buddha. Buddha preached on the way of life.

Same with Jesus, Jesus had never preached any religion called Christianity. Jesus preached on good moral values, to love and to forgive. Again, it is his disciples that found Christianity.

I was a Christian before and I admire both Jesus and Buddha for their preachings.

+999999%

Actually the gods created all of the religions including darwinism and they are all false

maltheism?

Yes they did, but it's not humans' agendas


I don't belong to any -ism, religions or any esoteric cults for that matter. The important things in this universe are hidden from us, in the same way that a child in kindergarten cannot comprehend what is being thought in College. We humans are clueless on the basic economic construct of simple supply and demand, and yet we claim to understand the complexities of the universe and how it works. Sure, whatever

Yes they are obnoxious as hell, without realizing they are as deluded as the religious people themselves

Another argument that will never ever stop. Right now I am constantly doing my duty as a Hindu though I have a Christian background

Sorry. You don't get away that easily. Some sort of -ism have probably been defined for every single believe, or lack thereof.

Didn't you just describe agnoticism?

I was going to tell one of my close friends that I'm agnostic. However, before that I asked her what she think about atheist/agnostic people. She told me that they are bad people and she will avoid them at all cost.

I personally don't blame her for having such thoughts, many religious people that I knew still think that non-religious people are generally bad influence.

Hey frags, I didn't notice this thread earlier. I'm the calltoreason.org / knights of the cardboard castle guy. My wife and I will join whatever group you cook up. Unfortunately, we're currently living in Seremban, but we'll be up for real life meet-ups if we happen to be in KL.

I think that asking people to meet up for no other reason than to discuss religion / philosophy etc. would be kind of silly. It would be better to organize the meeting around some kind of other activity, even if only as an icebreaker. I suggest boardgames (very social, especially when compared to videogames), some kind of movie club plus discussion afterwards (especially if someone can provide a suitable venue, likely someone's house) or some physical activity, a jungle hike, mountain climb etc.

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Added on March 22, 2012, 10:45 pmHey, someone posted a link to lesswrong! 'Fess up, how many of you are fans of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? If you've never read it and you are an atheist / rational thinker and love reading, you must read it immediately!

This post has been edited by wankongyew: Mar 22 2012, 10:45 PM

No problem. I'm just trying to get all sceptics gathered. Yes, might have to be some icebreaking deal. It's not a religion bashing thing... there have been known to be religious sceptics; even if sounds ridiculous.

My idea is to have a group similar to the Sceptics Guide To THe Universe... not the podcast... at least in the beginning.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/

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Added on April 14, 2012, 12:42 pmYes, that is quite common. Some people cant imagine how even we exist...by we I mean atheists or even agnostics. The best way is to convince others you're really an awesome fellow and then break it to them. It's a risk of course but you can't be living a lie forever. They might be bewildered but if you explain to them why you disbelieve, they might understand.

This post has been edited by frags: Apr 14 2012, 12:42 PM

Nice to know I aint the only atheist here!

*frantically raises hand*

Oh, oh oh... me..me! me!

Lemme start first for the ice breaking session.

Can I introduce you guys my GOD?? Can I? Can I?

I have absolute faith in Him, well, at least most of the time

He is none other than....

*drum rolls*

I don't believe there's God. But I kinda think that we are all bunch of experimental guinea pigs of aliens. Whatever that happens is determine by them. So what am I?

Agnostic is neither, something must created us or have influence on us because living being since dinosaur don't need intelligence to live a life, they just repeat life cycle. Why do human need intelligence and lead to doubt the creator is the question.

In a way, god believers accepted their fate and never doubt god's purpose, while some does not and will try to give an answer to the purpose of our existence, anything you can think of is not wrong because there is no right answer and has been thought of since long ago.

If you search deep enough, you will come across groups of people sharing the same thinking or believes, god / alien / creator is the same believe system, atheist believe in random creation but in denial of what created the Universe.

You think that's hard? At least you're atheist and have like-minded atheists to network with. It's harder being a rational, skeptical Muslim here. One is neither here nor there. Either I'm branded a theist (with that snarky, dismissive undertone of being intellectually disabled) or a murtad/hypocrite (with that snarky, dismissive undertone of being doomed for hellfire). Usually I network with atheists/skeptics (although a fair bunch of them are rather militant... dur). With that said, though, I still find they are a far more appealing crowd to have intellectual discussions with rather than people of faith.

Whatever it is, networking with people of ANY TYPE has not made me eschew myself from my misantrophy.

This post has been edited by jlim87: Sep 24 2012, 10:14 PM

Haha yeah i agree with jlim87. Being a rational skeptics muslim is way harder. Because 1) u'll be labelled as theist (therefore many thinks - that guy is an idiot, dont know how to think) and 2nd is you need to watch your words questioning stuff. It's good that i'm surrounded by relatively smart people therefore in the pool, there are a small group of people, two or three guys up for "offensive" and interesting discussion. And probably, some will think, ah this guy is trying to look cool calling himself "rational skeptic Muslim. There's no such thing". Well,i told u it's harder. (at least in my experience there are who thinks like that)

As a religious believer with an interest in science and philosophy (no not talking about the whole confucius stuff...) who has been here quite awhile, I have a few things I think I should add here.

Yes I understand how you atheists feel about Malaysian religious people. Most of them are charismatics and emotionally driven. Most Malaysians are also postmodernists i.e. they hate it when people disagree with them.(I'd blame our education system but...)

But I think we shouldn't be too quick to assign this close-minded behavior to only the religious people. I look at RWI and whenever debates on religion are concerned, there's always two sides just yelling at each other. There's no real intellectual exchange going on (only "quasi-intellectual")

I'm talking about militant atheism/agnosticism. Religious bigots start with the assumption that those who disagree with them are evil demonic people, while militant atheists seem to start with the assumption that all religious people are dumber than them and have no means of being smarter.

Wouldn't things be so much better if we try to understand the position of the people who disagree with us on our worldview before making any stupid arguments?

faith is not an arguement. don't use it as an arguement
don't treat it as an arguement.

easy.