Im atheist . And I get asked this often . Was curious to know other non believers answer to this . Without getting into to much detail my answer is simple. If I am wrong and im hell doomed for not believing then thats fine with me . Maybe hell is where I belong . Because there is just to many things in the bible itself I can't justify . Too many evilness . God murdered o don't know how many people including kids . He tortures gay people . Ect. I will not bow down before such an evil being . I also have questions for him as well. One being why has remain hidden ? Why did he leave behind no evidance of his existance? And even more confusing leave more evidence of him NOT existing and then throw us in flames for eternal torment for not believeing him ? If he does exist we have a mad man on charge and we should all be fearful of this lunitic . So send me to hell god because I would never follow you anyways
I would second a comment below and part of your comment. I have posted this before, if I could be convinced by evidence that there is a personal god that enters into the live's of humans, I would consider such a being responsible for the way things are and have been throughout history to be a crazed criminal lunatic or monster who would only deserve to be loathed.
I don’t understand these types of discussins tbh.
I don’t think of it as a choice or decision I have made.
It’a more like a conclusion. Like you think 1+1 =a based on the input and I think 1+1=2 . Good luck convincing me 1+1 is not 2 but more power to you.
My point is I don’t think I have a choice in what I know. I can research more and maybe I find different facts but as of now I know what know or know that I am missing facts and refuse to guess based on unknowns (that part is a decision, yes)
I look at it the other way. If there is a cosmic justice, then faith on bad evidence is not the greatest justice. So I don’t live my life worried about Bronze Age myths.
I have thought about this profoundly and many times, and the answer is pretty easy. There might be "something" but even from my limited cognitive capability I know and I am 100% positive that Abrahamic religion and its variants are absolutely mythological... zero doubts about it!
Now, getting back about let's assume there might be "something", Carl Sagan put it in words so much better that I ever could, but the idea was that I swear:
"The idea that God is an oversized white man with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."
--Carl Sagan
Large concepts often can not be stated specifically. Take love, for example... the moment you say what it is, it isn't that. The only way to describe it is through negation - to parse it what it is not.
If there is a God, I feel very sure about not being able to confirm it specifically. However, I could tell you pretty specifically that it isn't any of the myths I've heard so far.
So, if there is a God... it's nothing like people have said. And that's enough to know for now.
I would ask which God. There are thousands of Gods out there. Most of the people are wrong if any one of them is true anyway.
Well, the god you address is a nasty creature but you address him as if you believe in him and are angry. atheists are often accused of being angry at god, which is ridiculous because you can't be angry at someone who doesn't exist. the observations you make about the particular god you've chosen to observe are good and valid observations... of a particular fictional character. i can't tell from what you wrote whether you're just riffing on how it would be IF such a god existed, or whether you really do believe in one and don't like him/are angry at him, which, again, is NOT the definition of "atheist" (no matter how much some theists love to tell us it is). i am not accusing you of not really being an atheist. i am just telling you the impression your post leaves, at least how it impresses me.
now, i am not worried about a hell (or a heaven for that matter -- it sounds terribly boring anyway!) since if i don't believe in a god, i don't believe in hells or heavens either. but let's imagine for a minute that i am wrong. is the god that turns out to exist really the kind of god who punishes people for being mistaken? then maybe that is also the kind of god who punishes people regardless. is the god that turns out to exist a forgiving, reasonable god? then well oops. my point is, finding out there is a god or gods is not necessarily the same thing as finding out there is a hell or heaven or finding out that the god that exists has any particular interest in whether or not i believed in him/her/it. i don't give it a lot of thought. finding out there is a god or are gods after all is about as on my list of things to worry about as finding out i am really a unicorn and my horn got bitten off by the tooth fairy. but if i try really hard to imagine there is some kind of god who reveals him/her/itself to me, presumably after my death, i still have to imagine WHICH god(s), and what KIND of god(s) before i could imagine what, if anything besides "oops," i would do or say to that entity.
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this is always s weird question for me to answer but I'll have another go -
a) I don't really care if there is a god or not I am 70 and if s/he he it hasnt revealed themselves to me yet, times running out
b) What difference would it make to my life. I refuse to be judged by anyone especially given how many people inhabit this planet of ours
c) havent really got a c its just that most answers go in 3's. (C could be again ,how much I really don't care.)
You seem obsessed with flames and being thrown into flames. I have to ask which god is it that I am wrong about? It certainly cannot be the biblical god. Too many contradictions in the book. Then people forget that Jesus himself said he had come to save the lost sheep of Israel and later, Saul of Tarsus expanded that idea to include the Gentiles. Oh, it's OK because he is St. Paul. WTF?
At a checkout yesterday there was some trouble with the credit card and a man in line said it will all be embedded in your body soon as a chip. That day is coming, he said, and it's coming soon. I left thinking that many people today actually deserved the biblical god. It's a crazy world.
Believing in something "just in case" is the most sincere form of belief
Please don't involve me in your psychosis always seems to work
Usually the people asking are Christian. If so I tell them that if the god in the Bible exists I still wouldn’t worship him. We have only his word that he is a good and loving god and I see no proof of that on earth. We were told that we suffer because we are sinners but every creature with a nervous system suffers every day. If there is a god he is the most evil creature ever.
Pascal's wager doesn't interest me. It essentially boils down to someone holding a gun to your head asking you "well what if there ARE bullets in the clip?" A threat is a threat, no matter how it is packaged, and that isn't any reason to believe something that cannot be backed by evidence or logic. You can ask them "what if blind faith alone isn't a good enough reason to get into this heaven of yours, considering there are a multitude of child rapists and murderers who fervently believe that god exists and that Jesus died for them?" As Matt Dilahunty phrased it, if it turned out he was wrong and there was a god, then that entity would have a lot to answer for if it was the same one mentioned in the bible. And if god chose to toss him into hell for using his critical reasoning skills then at least he would be secure in the knowledge that he was vastly more moral than that thuggish monster.
I always answer "I'm not wrong".
I have no need to justify not believing fairy tales to anyone, nor to answer their fairy tale related "what if"s.
I have many replies depending on who I am speaking to.
One of my favorites goes something like this...
I live my life by a strong moral code. I treat myself and the people around me with kindness and respect. So, if at the end of time I find myself at the pearly gates and I get refused because I didn’t give my life to Jesus.... Well fuck your god them I’d rather dance with the devil.
I think much about the question, "What if there is a God?" My response is whether He would look upon me and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." My hope is that God would say that my journey to understanding was genuine; I sought evidence and found it lacking. But nonetheless, I kept looking and was a good humanitarian because what I did toward others was good and right--not because of an eternal reward. And that, ironically, would be true Faith.
Hum let's see. Last I checked there are more then 3400 gods but that was a while ago so there are probably a lot more by now. Looks to me it's us, the human race, against them. I'm a marine. I'll take more of them down before they even know what's going down.
But back to reality. I'd really love to kill a god. I here once you do you get it's power.