Atheist/Believer is a false dichotomy bent on self validation

The first line in this is the last line:

I just feel incredibly lost in this sea of sides... as I don't have a side, and it makes me wonder why so many others do.

How come the masses are so divided on this issue? Why does it have to be atheism vs believers? Or even vice versa.


Atheists act as if they are right because they don't believe in God.

Believers in God act as if they are right because God is on their side.

When in reality, both sides simply are trying to be right.

That is what the real issue is, this damned pernicious desire to be right. And about what? If God exists? Who really cares when it comes down to it. Nobody... they just want to be right.

You know what true liberation of the mind is? Allowing yourself to believe different things, even those which contradict each other. Because at the end of the day believing is simply acting "as if".


For example, right now if I plot out the next week of my life and assume God Exists, it doesn't change anything about how or what I am going to do as if I assumed God did not exist.

I am a scientist, an occultist, a philosopher, a mystic. I am someone who cleans things up, and someone who defecates. I am someone who fights, and someone who fornicates. I am someone who cares for some things, and would rather piss on others.

I am a human, and no matter what I believe, I will never be anything else than what I am. If what I believe causes me problems, I simply throw it out with the garbage.

And why not, for the believers, Jesus admonished you to do the exact same thing... for if your eye cause you to sin, pluck it out, right?

For the Atheists, this should come easy... your viewpoints getting in your way... change them.. act as if something else might be true or that nothing is true... whatever. Because there is no hell, so who cares right?

I just feel incredibly lost in this sea of sides... as I don't have a side, and it makes me wonder why so many others do.







[edit on 14-4-2009 by HunkaHunka]

You're more or less agnostic, at best.

I'm atheist happy to be so, I think the Bible has good points to it, and should be respected. I'm not *well entirely* a hedonistic person. I am human.

If you believe in something that contradicts another of your beliefs, one must be wrong, or both are wrong, ergo, what you believe is not real, and is degrading to believe in (no offense, I don't know you just IMO).

Christians want everyone to believe in God, because if not we will all burn in hell for eternity. It's their beliefs.

We atheists want people not to believe in god, because we feel its more better to question everything instead of full fledging your life into something without knowing if it is real or not.

When I became atheist, I took life that much more seriously, I realized this is my one shot, this is my Mavericks game we they pick one person to shoot a free throw and if they make it they win 1,000,000 dollars. So far, thats what my life is now, dedication in advancing studies to which are unknown as of now.

When I was a christian before I thought for myself, (no offense again, just my personal life) I didn't care about my life, cause in the end I believed we went to heaven and sang for all eternity....ugh... Life is more precious for me now, it's a fleeting moment, which I would be a fool to waste.



IMO. Great topic. Very mind numbing/capturing.

Nice post, I've got into the debate a few times but I don't linger over the my god is right.....

I'm agnostic.

Atheists could be right.

I could be right.

Bottom damn line is, no one knows until they DIE.

I just tell them not to give me that scientific synopsis crap, I know all about it, and I've read enough to know that there is something else, and that's what I stick by.

What you ask? No idea.

All I know, is I doubt very highly Atheists are correct with their analogies, because SCIENCE, well, we don't even know the whole of science. That's enough in itself, and for the atheists to run around and smudge on everyone's belief is just plain NAZI as is some religious person plagiarizing their beliefs.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by Revolution-2012]

reply to post by Revolution-2012


Don't depict, atheists as a group of tyrants. We are not KKK members' nazis' or anything else some are but some are also very religious.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on their beliefs in a Higher Power, A God, or No god.

But please do not say Atheists smudge their beliefs on everyone else, that is simply not true. We know of Dawkins, he is one of few, intelligent but of a wrong approach.

hello Hunka, there >IS< a solution to your Constipation !!
to avoid complications, ill summarise it in short sentences :
(1) atheists technically dont exist, since they all HOPE their Life Force
will "help" them survive, just like the religious
(2) but they despise the word "god" due to all the contamination
it carries over the millennia
(3) "god" NOT = "good", but is a FORM of evil itself
(4) the sheer act of Objectivising "god" will divert Mind to its Antithesis
(5) thus forget about "god" and just LIVE !! "the Way of No Way"
as mr.Lee would tell you. good luck

Mod Edit: To Remove Personal Information.

[edit on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:09:05 -0500 by MemoryShock]

Originally posted by Revolution-2012

Bottom damn line is, no one knows until they DIE.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by Revolution-2012]

That doesn't even make any sense. Dead people don't "know" things. They don't "know" they are dead - they don't exist.

There will be nothing to know.
‍

Originally posted by Republican08
You're more or less agnostic, at best.

Well kinda...

For example, Wikipedia says:

Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the true value of certain claims — particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, ghosts, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove. It is often put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism,[1] though it is not a religious declaration in itself.

And technically, that is my thesis, that you can't know anything for sure.

However, what is very different, is a very key piece to my worldview. Namely that the only reality of any conscious consequence is the subjective reality. I'll explain more as I move along.

I'm atheist happy to be so, I think the Bible has good points to it, and should be respected. I'm not *well entirely* a hedonistic person. I am human.

I view all religious texts as essentially the chronicles of how humans deal with existential dilemmas. They all originate from one specific question:

"How the hell do I deal with this crap?"

If you believe in something that contradicts another of your beliefs, one must be wrong, or both are wrong, ergo, what you believe is not real, and is degrading to believe in (no offense, I don't know you just IMO).

Ok, here we come back to what I was mentioning earlier, regarding reality.

First, it's very easy to believe two things which contradict each other in a situation where both beliefs can be objectively shown to be effective. Note, that right/wrong don't figure into my world view as much as effective/uneffective.

An example of two contradicting beliefs which are both effective, is the wave/particle duality of light, which manifests differently depending on the conditions of the experiment. But, that too is dealing with the objective realm, and concepts of God etc are far from objective.

I attune my beliefs to enable my effectiveness towards my goals. And this is where the major difference is between what I believe Agnosticism to be, and what I am. Whereas Agnosticism might sit in between Theism and Atheism, and be the a priori to the motive of the individual; in my situation, the motive comes first, and then the world view which best suits the outcome is applied.

For example, let's say a family member near to me has passed on. As a human, I'm going to experience loss of some sort. Regardless of what my views might be of death, I will experience the pain of having an intimate relationship, and all of the activities associated with it, removed from my experience. The result is subjective pain.

So how to deal with it? Well, in my situation, I will begin the process of believing I can commune with "the soul" of that person even to the point of deluding myself. This can be very effective in relieving that subjective pain, and it doesn't matter if it is objectively true or not, mainly because the pain is not objective either. Yet because my beliefs are fluid, there is also no fear of any delusional concepts staying with me any longer than needed to suit the original motive.

Likewise, the opposite is also true. At one point I had an experience which most would say resembles the common abduction phenomena, yet to me the grey being with blackness where eyes should be wasn't exactly what I would call an Alien. It was more of an ethereal experience which gave the impression that I was experiencing an interaction with "a soul" on some astral level.

To be honest, the experience scared the crap out of me. And this fear wouldn't go away as long as I believed that I could have interactions with spirits on an astral plane. However, once I tweaked my belief about the situation, making it more of a representation of my unconscious as opposed to some sort of communion with "a soul", my fear evaporated.

You see belief often forms most of our motives, which is why I believe that some folks who start out being taught that God exists, become Atheists. Because those who teach about God, typically are trying to manipulate your motives, for right or for wrong.

However, I have found that if I use belief to suit my motives, as opposed to allowing belief to create my motives, then I am no longer enclosed in the confines of concepts which are absolute.

Now, you brought up the idea that the belief in something that is wrong is detrimental to the individual. However, I believe that it is Conviction, which is detrimental to the individual as it puts blinders on the consciousness to any other way of interpreting ones world.

Christians want everyone to believe in God, because if not we will all burn in hell for eternity. It's their beliefs.

Well... I'd say that's true for most of Christians, the whole "burn in hell" thing. Once again, that's a belief conditioning a motive, as opposed to the otherway around.

However, that doesn't seem to be the motivation for the character of Jesus in my opinion. His stories show him simply relieving the current suffering of people, specifically those sufferings caused by "demons".

Now I find that without rigid beliefs... "demons", or what we might call neurosis, psychosis, and psycho-somatic disorders today, lose their power.

We atheists want people not to believe in god, because we feel its more better to question everything instead of full fledging your life into something without knowing if it is real or not.

And once again, this is why I tend to lump Atheists in the same group of believers as Christians and other religious believers, as instead of putting belief before motive, the atheist puts doubt before motive, for basically the same reasons, a concern about what's real.

I say again, because you can get angry and work yourself into a heart attack, or die of a broken heart, or any other host of issues which stem from one's subjective understanding of reality, the only true reality, as it relates to consciousness of the individual, is the subjective reality, and that is conditioned, primarily by belief. I say primarily, because the other much smaller portion of what conditions the consciousness other than beliefs, is sensory experience. Which is ultimately a more hardwired form of interpretation of the objective world.

For example, when I feel the pain of fire, it's not really the fire I'm feeling. I'm feeling my central nervous system yelling at me saying "Hey Buddy, you better move your hand out of that fire, before we lose it!"


Now, lots of traditions try to remove belief from the picture altogether, and guide the student towards concentrating on the sensory experience only. An example of this is the Zen concept of Mindfulness. I can attest, that the practice of this, is a very liberating one, as during the meditation, with the concepts and beliefs of the consciousness temporarily replaced with simply sensory experience, worry evaporates.

Once again though, this leads one to certain beliefs as well, which again condition the motives of the individual. Note, I'm not knocking this practice of mindfulness, because I use it, like anything else, to support my motives.

When I became atheist, I took life that much more seriously, I realized this is my one shot, this is my Mavericks game we they pick one person to shoot a free throw and if they make it they win 1,000,000 dollars. So far, thats what my life is now, dedication in advancing studies to which are unknown as of now.

First I applaud you on your motive to advance studies which are unknown currently.

However, I find it interesting that your transition to atheism increased your sense of mortality. This belief in your mortality has then conditioned your motives toward a more serious stance on your life. The "one shot" position.

As I was making my transitions, I actually had the opposite problem. My religious upbringing actually caused what I refer to as an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and seriousness in myself.

Today, the only thing I approach with any seriousness is whatever the task at hand happens to be. Well, that and relieving the suffering of others. Not out of altruism or anything, I'm just hugely empathic and it can be bothersome to be aware of others suffering.

When I was a christian before I thought for myself, (no offense again, just my personal life) I didn't care about my life, cause in the end I believed we went to heaven and sang for all eternity....ugh... Life is more precious for me now, it's a fleeting moment, which I would be a fool to waste.

Yeah, I can see how a religious upbringing can cause that apathy.

And that is actually why I don't believe children should be taught theological notions such as afterlife with any level of certainty. Keep in mind that Jesus was speaking to a crowd of people who used guilt as currency. And thus, his message, to those already soaked in the blood of guilt, didn't lead to apathy so much as a liberation. Whereas, if the individual doesn't even suffer from an existential crisis and is taught all this theology, it typically leads to a malaise such as you mentioned.

I applaud your courage to move from the world view that was given you, to a world view you have chosen. The only real difference I can tell between our two perspectives is that I choose my worldview within the moment to suit my motives.

It appears, your motives are still conditioned by your worldview. However, you are choosing your own worldview to start from, which from what I can tell has lead you to a place of greater joy than you had originally.

Thanks as well for your post!




[edit on 15-4-2009 by HunkaHunka]

[edit on 15-4-2009 by HunkaHunka]

reply to post by logician magician

But please do not say Atheists smudge their beliefs on everyone else, that is simply not true. We know of Dawkins, he is one of few, intelligent but of a wrong approach.

Well, Republican08, go ahead and add him to the roster

magician, go ahead and explain to me how you know what happens when you die, again? The typical '___' life flash scenario?

Well, I offer you to look at this.

reply to post by HunkaHunka


I know exactly how you feel and the simple fact of the matter is there is really no changing the situation. People will always seek to convert or destroy those they disagree with, unless we actually evolve to be better than we are and accept each other as we are. Both extremes are pretty damn set that their particular answer to the big unanswered *perhaps unanswerable* question is dead set on and won't broke with being told otherwise, even if it's just someone thinking differently. I guess one can honestly say it's really all just mankind's favorite annoying past time, politics.
My general approach has been to float around and smack both sides when they step out of line and watch the mental gymnastics that ensue as they twist to justify themselves, it's pretty much a petty entertainment of mine and admittingly silly on my part, but all well.
If you figure out some better fix for it please let me know.