Atheism: A New Way of Seeing God

Since there's been a lot of talk about religion thought I'd share some guys experience

See what you think of it...

This is the only video I've seen of him.

 

Interesting, everyone has their own views on life and God. Just a different way of looking at things I guess. Didn't know about Pantheists before this video, thanks for posting.

 

Its quite interesting and he does point out quite a few flaws others choose not to see or believe. I really enjoyed the video.

 

I agree with what he has said about himself emulating and creating god from his views.


Rational people can take a step away from religion and see how irrational it truly is.

 

Many Pantheists abstain from the use of the word 'God', it has far too many negative connotations attached to it. Notwithstanding that, all Pantheism is, is rephrasing the word 'God' to 'Nature', or 'Universe'.

 

God only exists in people's minds.

If Pantheists say that God is everything, what they should say is that they believe God is a symbol for everything.

And referring to your title: "Atheism: A New Way of Seeing God", that is incorrect. Atheism is a way of NOT seeing God. In Atheism, nature is nature. There is no God, under any condition, even if people think he is "everything".

 

Not quite, I consider God to be an idea and way people convince themselves in order to find purpose and peace through ignorance. I don't acknowledge a God as a figure or presence, but as a simple idea.

 

Panic - I keep seeing your posts and agreeing

The way I see it: There are many different religions - believers of each different faith THINK that their faith is the right one. But they are so mind-numbingly different... so who is right?

Which story of the many to chose from is accurate?

You can be a dumb/arrogant arsehole and say that your religion is undoubtedly the right one - when about 90% of the human population are of a different Religion - does this mean that they won't get in to heaven?
NO - beacuse heaven is bullshit, and the 42 virgins is BULLSHIT!

Realising that religion is a crock of shit is easy.

I myself, was brought up as a Catholic.. but amongst the constant violence in Northern Ireland - I realised that we are pretty much identical in terms of culture, humour, moral values etc. All that seperated us was Religion.

Things have moved on in NI - but I see history being repeated now with this Holy war being fought for Islam.

 

Athiests think that they are believing that nature is nature but in fact there entire fact base is based on faith just like every other religion. People can say what they want about religion but to believe that we all came to be from a random explosion of a ball the size of a period, i mean common lets just be realistic here haha

As far as this video goes, I would challenge you to read the entire Bible cover to cover and you will find not one thing that does not check out in history.

 

How is the Big Bang theory unrealistic?

 

Atheism does not base itself on faith.
Atheism is merely the non-belief of the existence of God.

Also, appeal to ignorance.

The book of Job(e).

 

Not quite. Disbelieving a proposition because you have failed to demonstrate its veracity hardly relies of faith (that is, the suspension of reason so that a claim may be believed irrespective of the evidence backing it). Big Bang cosmology and atheism are not synonymous; they aren't even related. I've read large portions of the bible, and there are numerous problems in those bits that I have read (see this post for the problems apparent in about 10 minutes of reading). I don't understand how you can urge us to "be realistic" when you are propagating a holy book that contains such antiquated cosmological ideas as geocentrism, and the existence of a firmament. The Torah contains many internal inconsistencies that make its multiple authorship apparent; various parts of the Old Testament endorse the polytheistic view that Yahweh is not the only god; the gospels contradict one another in regard to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ; and Paul's statements are occasionally in conflict with the teachings of Jesus. Given all of that, can you honestly make the claim that I "will find not one thing that does not check out in history"?

 

Let's see if I got this. Pantheists think that God is not a creature, but that God is the universe, and so we are a part of God?

As I don't know every single 'tweak' of religion (basically, every kind of religion is just a tweak of the original, in my opinion), I'll just share my opinion about God: God is a thing, that was created in one's mind, and loved by this person. This person got energy, and a reason to live, out of this thing. So much even, that he existed for that person. That person has told others about "God", and the other people started to believe in this God as well. Just like with gossip, the story tweaked here and there, and in the end it spread all over the world, in different forms. God was a thing that's brought to life by the mind. Now, people fight each other, because the exact same God has different ideas. While it originally was the same thing, just tweaked so people would adore him better. Currently, God is no longer boss. Humanity has kicked him off his throne.

What does this make me?

 

This video basically describes my own personal views. God is nature, completely impersonal, devoid of any feelings or aspect of humanity. God (in pantheism) is merely synonymous to the universe itself. As malakadang said earlier, most pantheists do not tend to use the word "God" because creationists simply cannot wrap their heads around the way in which it is used. Pantheism, at it's most simple level, is merely a very spiritualistic version of Atheism. There is no diety and no afterlife.

Also I find it funny how people like runescape guides3 feel the need to defend their own views on a relatively subjective topic by insulting a well known and widely accepted scientific theory by calling it unrealistic, but maintaining the notion that there is some form of transcendent life controlling everything around us seemingly through magic. I've got news for you..

 

1. You can believe in God and the Big Bang Theory, they do not contradict one another.

2. The Big Bang Theory still explains nothing on how life actually began. I love it when people say believing in God is completely irrational, yet those same people still can't explain to me how the first atom came to be. It's funny how that void in science is never brought up. You ignoring the fact you can't explain it, or believing it was just "there" to begin with is as "irrational" to me as me believing in God is to you.

 

Believing in God is irrational. You place your belief on something that is arbitrary. You cannot back it up with a priori or a posteriori evidence. It's like believing in the existence of a pink devil that floats around between galaxies and maintains the natural laws; whats the difference?

It is also not irrational to say I don't know.

 

It is not irrational to say you don't know, but if you don't know, how can you say others' beliefs are irrational when you don't know the actual answer. It's the fact that science tries to discredit certain beliefs, ideas, or answers, yet it can't actually answer the question itself.

 

Belief in God asserts and postulates a positive claim. x exists.
There is no evidence that x exists, the burden of proof is on the believer to put forward his evidence to substantiate his claim. The burden has not been fulfilled, not even close.

Based on that, and that alone, one can conclude that pertaining to that matter, the person is acting irrationally in believing in something with no evidence to suggest exists.

Science doesn't try to discredit certain beliefs, science merely observes and formulates hypothesis. The theory of gravity is only a theory, as is evolution, though, the insurmountable evidence has lead us to believe that it is fact. It is still only a theory.

What question would you like answered?

 

I have faith in God. I'm not claiming physical evidence of His existence. To you, this is irrational, to me, it's completely rational. Claiming you do not know is not irrational, but claiming something is irrational because you do not know the "rational" answer is.

At one time science thought the world was flat, and that you'd fall off the edge. At that time, it was rational to believe it was flat, even though the idea would now be considered irrational. Simply because science can't prove or disprove an idea now, at this moment, doesn't make it irrational or untrue. Science is ever changing, according to science at this moment, it might be "irrational" to believe in God, however, according to me, it is completely rational and may be proved so by science in the future.

 

Faith is irrational and destructive to the human mind.

I wonder what part religion had to play. Oh yes!
If there is evidence to suggest something, then it is rational to formulate a conclusion based on that evidence. I'm not sure what evidence there was, however, if there was valid evidence, then to believe the world was flat would be rational.

An omnipotent God cannot ever exist, as to do so would defy everything. Though, a supernatural being could very well exist, but, there is no evidence to suggest that, so it would be irrational to postulate it.

That is silly. It is rational for me to believe that Santa is real as it may be proved in the future. No. It is irrational for me to believe in something that has no evidence to substantiate its claims.