Atheist Crutches?

Three questions for atheists.

Is religion a crutch?
Is that wrong?
How is that different from what you do to give meaning to your life?

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People & Blogs

Tags:

• Crutch
• religion
• atheist
• agnostic

[hellhammerz666]

We are also arrogant. We think that being the sole sapient species on this planet makes us somehow special. We look for purpose to our existence, when it's pretty evident the universe doesn't give a damn about us. However, as sapient beings, we learn to value life, to enjoy the time we have here, to experience the most we can. Does it really matter if there's an ultimate purpose or not? I don't think so. Besides, what's the point in living if you're somehow gonna transcend this physical form?

[littlemas2]

@hellhammerz666 I am going to respond to one particular strawman that you brought up here and in your other response. Christians do not believe that we are living simply for a future life. We should live for God, but that includes this life as well.

In this life we are commanded to be joyful, thankful, good thinkers, parents, citizen, spouses. Being a Christian has not somehow made life here less important, but rather given me even more reason to live it well.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 This is why these religions have managed to make believe there's somehow a need for "mystery" in religion. Instead of providing solid evidence for these things, they obfuscate their weak claims in a smokecloud of ambiguity and semantical interpretation. You can easily see this in christianity by taking a look at the hundreds of denominations that can't even agree on many aspects of the bible.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 Under this blatantly dishonest framework, religions have managed to erect a false wall of ignorance and undeserved reverence. This is why it sounds weird and strident when someone openly criticizes or inquires about them. Religious institutions managed to craft a taboo to protect their unfunded supernatural claims. Just by reading the bible objectively you can easily identify several inconsistencies and spot many weird claims no sane mind in the 21st century would admit easily.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 It may not on a practical sense, because we don't rely on this belief to develop our daily activities. We don't depend on supernatural beliefs when it comes to analize pretty much every aspect of our lifes. I would say most of us are able to treat bogus claims with relative distrust until evidence is presented. The problem is, that same rationality isn't applied to religions, because for centuries they've gotten away with scaring people from asking questions about them.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 It may not be the only motivation, but demanding gullibility in order to access an unproven afterlife is enough for me to distrust this. What kind of "almighty, all knowing, omniscient", being would demand such a thing? Regardless of the personal impact this belief has had in your life, accepting this shameless demand of gullibility drives me to think your standards of evidence need to be increased considerably.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 The type of evidence you should look for is stuff that you can show to everyone. Otherwise, it's not evidence at all. This is why non-replicable personal experiences described by many believers aren't enough to demonstrate their supernatural claims. If a person had a personal experience that made him/her believe in a god, or any other type of supernatural power, that's fine. However, the person can't expect to convince another person just by telling him about his experience.

[littlemas2]

@littlemas2 Finally, you suggest that belief in god stifles human curiosity. Again, I do not think this is historically or currently correct. I have a Christian friend who is a Doctor and runs a cancer research lab at Mayo Clinic. His faith has not stopped him from rising to the top of his field in medicine. Do/have some people for various reasons stifle opposing views? Yes, but that happens in all belief systems, not just religious ones. China is not religious, but they do it.

[littlemas2]

@littlemas2 You also suggest that God demands belief primarily so that we get heaven, and while heaven is certain a motivation, it is not the only motivation. For me personally belief in Yahweh (the Christian God) has had a big impact on my life here.

[littlemas2]

@hellhammerz666 Again, thanks for the responses. You have given me the idea for the next video that I need to make. You said that god demands belief without evidence, and that is not how the Bible describes faith, but non-believers think that it does and unfortunately so do many Christians. Therefore, my video will describe why this is wrong (from a biblical standpoint) and what kind of evidence we should look at to know what we believe conforms to the truth.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 About this "strawman". It's simply a description of how your bible portraits this god character, after having analized his behaviour rationally with updated morals (the ones we use nowadays). But since, according to you, my description of what and why you guys believe it is incorrect, i would like you to describe it, because if i got it wrong, i'd like to correct it.

[hellhammerz666]

@littlemas2 Why is aliveness better than non-aliveness? Perhaps because we happen to be alive? It's the time we get in this sentient form before we go back to be more innert matter again in the universe.. Maybe, there's actually an afterlife themepark on the other side, but until evidence is presented to support it, i'll stick to life :). What could be better than enjoying it? If being alive is a misery, then struggle to change misery into happiness, or go easymode and kill yourself.