RE: Why I’m an Atheist... But also Searching for Answers: Introduction to my Blog
Would you consider yourself agnostic? This is what I tend to tell people when they ask me what my religious faith is. If you haven't heard of the term, it means:
"a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God."
This includes all religions in my opinion. There is no way anyone could prove the existence of any of these religions. If somehow someone gave me proof, sure, I would believe. But that is because I live a life based in fact, not blind faith.
To me, religions were made long ago by people who could not find meaning in life. They also wanted to give morals to others that needed them. That is fine. But I am not going to blindly follow something that has been translated and handed down by word than by the interpretation of a bunch of other humans, who lie constantly, and finally put into a physical book form. It seems extremely ignorant to believe and trust humans over the past two thousand years.
I do recommend, and I see you are probably on your way, getting into philosophy. It really gets you thinking about the question. Even if you don't know the question. What are morals? What is justice? Why does it matter? Where do I fit in to the big picture? Does the big picture matter? Etc.
Great post man, keep it up.
Agnostic is a useless word. Everyone is agnostic, whether they believe or not. Agnostic, means lacking knowledge. Nobody knows God. If they did, conclusive proof would be put forth.
People can be deist, as in maybe there is an entity larger than ourselves, which I concede might be possible, or theist, those that believe a certain entity governs them and follows a certain faith. I can understand the deist position, as it acknowledges the position of the person not knowing all about the universe. But I cannot understand a theist position at all. Believing in some ancient manuscript when most of its arguments have been debunked, them being either incomplete, or outright contradictory to reality, well, that's just silly.
In a way, a theist is the staunchest atheist of all, completely denying without a doubt the inexistence of all gods either than their own. Well, atheist just go one god further. And unless, they're the militant angry atheist, they're position is always "I don't have all the information, but the information that I do have invalidates the existence of god".
Meaning in my opinion is not given by a god, but by ourselves. What we accomplish during our lifetime and what we represent to those around us, that is our meaning. Whether good or bad, enlightening or regressive, that only time will tell, when posterity will pass judgement on our actions. But that posterity is not omnipotent, but more potent than ourselves, most likely.
I really like philosophy, especially in college, but I want to get into for real.
I call myself an Atheist because I don’t require 100% certainty for belief or disbelief. Disbelief would never be had if 100% certainty was required (proving a negative is impossible in most cases).