why are you an atheist?

1000 posts!

woot

Anyway.

I realized I had never posted in here. Might as well make a token appearence.

So why am I atheist? I'll give the Reader's Digest version for brevity's sake.

- Formerly a Christian/Catholic. I have no hard feelings toward my former faith, and actually feel privileged to have been on both sides of the debate. I just reached the point where I could no longer believe it.
- Had moral qualms with Biblical stories (some crazy sh*t in there...especially Old Testament).
- Absurd number of mythological predecessors to both Old Testament stories as well as the life of Jesus, from the broadest motifs to the detailed stories, little if anything is an original or historically plausible tale.
- State of the universe leaves little or no need for an intervening paranormal force (God). The laws of chemistry, physics, evolution, etc. take care of us from the point of the Big Bang (and quite probably before that as well) up to our current state.
- Attempts to prove the existence of a God (and most paranormal phenomenon as well) seem logically flawed to me for a variety of reasons.
- I avoided the "atheist" label for a while, but it gets the point across and also (suprisingly) invokes a lot of discussion in my life, which is usually a good thing.
- There are moral guidelines, themes, motifs, and stories that I can endorse from a variety of religions (notably Eastern ones like Taoism) but I consider those part of the philosophy of how I live my life. They don't fall into the realm on what I would consider "beliefs".

...

That's it in a nutshell. I can extrapolate on any of those, but for anyone who knows that I'm an atheist, but not why, there it is.

digi you seem well versed in theories and the like so i have a question for you. if matter cannot be created or destroyed how is the universe expanding. ive always wondered that

New matter isn't being created. Expanding simply refers to the evidence that the existing matter is moving outwards from where it is assumed that the Big Bang took place.

right but how can atoms expand? if space is getting bigger new matter has to be created right?

Nah. The atoms don't expand. Empty space is left where other matter once was. Outer space is generally empty... well if we exclude light. Kinda of like how atoms are mostly empty space.

This definitely isn't my best subject though.

k

Nellinator phrased it well. Atoms are mostly empty space, so the Big Bang was just matter packed in mind-numbingly tight. The expansion is leftover momentum from the explosion and the atoms themselves are simply dispersing into empty space.

Astrophysics isn't my forte either. I can say I've read a couple Stephen Hawking books and various articles on aspects of the known universe, but I'd be hard-pressed to describe, say, Einsteinian relativity with any eloquence.

And at the quantum level (jumping even further out of my wheelhouse) particles can spontaneous generate out of nothingness (and vice-versa, disappear...which is what happens if a particle of matter meets it's "anti-particle"😉. Electrons do this when they make a quantum leap to a different orbit around a nucleus. Don't ask me how. But I'm not just pulling this out of nowhere (pun intended), as it is an observable and documented phenomenon.

dont worry i wont have a chance to quote you. no reason too. ill just ask endless mike, seeing as he knows a shitload about science

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Nellinator phrased it well. Atoms are mostly empty space, so the Big Bang was just matter packed in mind-numbingly tight. The expansion is leftover momentum from the explosion and the atoms themselves are simply dispersing into empty space.

Astrophysics isn't my forte either. I can say I've read a couple Stephen Hawking books and various articles on aspects of the known universe, but I'd be hard-pressed to describe, say, Einsteinian relativity with any eloquence.

And at the quantum level (jumping even further out of my wheelhouse) particles can spontaneous generate out of nothingness (and vice-versa, disappear...which is what happens if a particle of matter meets it's "anti-particle"😉. Electrons do this when they make a quantum leap to a different orbit around a nucleus. Don't ask me how. But I'm not just pulling this out of nowhere (pun intended), as it is an observable and documented phenomenon.

physics is one of those things ill never understand and wont have time too

No one understand physics really. They just try and make predictions from what they do know. I hear that the law of lift was recently invalidated, so apparently we don't even know why planes fly anymore. Physics is an ever changing field and like you, I don't have the time for it.

Well, to be fair, science is always in unheaval somehow. But that's what makes it so powerful. It's constantly refining our knowledge and admitting our flaws. If religions could do the same and say "holy crap! Look at all the stuff our ancestors didn't know. We should change some of our views." we'd be in good shape.

Fortunately for us, morality progresses itself regardless of religious moral edicts. If we lived strictly according to most Western religions, or even as they were interpreted centuries ago, the civilized world would be a much crueler place.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Well, to be fair, science is always in unheaval somehow. But that's what makes it so powerful. It's constantly refining our knowledge and admitting our flaws. If religions could do the same and say "holy crap! Look at all the stuff our ancestors didn't know. We should change some of our views." we'd be in good shape.

Fortunately for us, morality progresses itself regardless of religious moral edicts. If we lived strictly according to most Western religions, or even as they were interpreted centuries ago, the civilized world would be a much crueler place.

lol dont get me started on mormons. thats the most rediculus religion IMO. jesus in america my ass

*sigh*

Originally posted by Alliance
*sigh*

rays faster than light have been detected???????

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Nellinator phrased it well. Atoms are mostly empty space, so the Big Bang was just matter packed in mind-numbingly tight. The expansion is leftover momentum from the explosion and the atoms themselves are simply dispersing into empty space.

Originally posted by lord xyz
There is one thing though, what triggered the Big Bang?

Nothingness is unstable.

Originally posted by lord xyz
There is one thing though, what triggered the Big Bang?

...which is where theists generally go once you tell them that there's no need for divine intervention post-Big Bang.

Various theories abound, most at the quantum level (shakya's statement alludes to this, as nothingness is an unstable state, and at the subatomic level matter can appear out of nowhere via quantum phase shifts like the electron quantum leap I mentioned earlier). The point, however, is that positing an infinitely complex God doesn't erase the need for a first cause, because it just begs the question by suggesting that God is self-evident, and it doesn't attempt to rationalize His existence.

The beginning, if anything, derived from simple means...just as evolution allows for complexity to arise from simple and basic materials and rules. It didn't arrive from even greater complexity (God).