When atheists have doubts!

[Rum]

It just occurred to me that people of religion who go through periods of doubting their faith often go through a great deal of anxiety. To my knowledge this isn't a phenomenon atheists ever experience if they find themselves wondering if maybe there is a supernatural creator after all!

Unless you know different of course...

[Robert_S]

It just occurred to me that people of religion who go through periods of doubting their faith often go through a great deal of anxiety. To my knowledge this isn't a phenomenon atheists ever experience if they find themselves wondering if maybe there is a supernatural creator after all!

Unless you know different of course...

I have a fleeting doubt now and then, but it goes away as soon as I try to figure out what it is I actually think might exist. Nothing really troubling or persistent like when I tried to maintain theistic notions.

[Trolldor]

I used to when I was first getting out, and occassionally when I was really down and out.
But haven't since I started reading more of the sciency stuff.
The Universe is too big for a god.

[beige]

I used to pray sometimes when I was really little, but it only ever made things worse because nothing ever got fixed.

At that point though I wouldn't have said I was atheist, I still didn't really see how wrong it was at that point. As soon as I was old enough to think a bit more reasonably I've not really looked back, and I suppose I have had the benefit of never being fully indoctrinated into all of it.

[Pappa]

Rum, theist have doubts and the acompanying anxiety for a very good reason.... there is no god.

[Tigger]

It just occurred to me that people of religion who go through periods of doubting their faith often go through a great deal of anxiety. To my knowledge this isn't a phenomenon atheists ever experience if they find themselves wondering if maybe there is a supernatural creator after all!

Unless you know different of course...

I have no doubts whatsoever, and I really hate it when, in science programmes such as the one we discussed recently on Channel 4 (http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=17367), the presenter gets all wishy washy and rants philosophical about the possible existence of a deity. In this case the silly fucker waits until the end to put forward his thoughts that as we discover how complex the universe really is, it’s more understandable that people expect the existence of the supernatural. It’s where science and religion “come together”, he intimated. I think he said it actually, rather than just intimating. He’s just fucking wrong. All it means is it’s complicated, no more, no less. Whether he believes it himself or not, I think scientists generally should be forbidden to wax lyrical; look at the trouble that Einstein’s “god” caused. Gave the woomongers a little shred to clutch onto didn’t it?

Amongst other things, including his God does not play dice with the universe faux pas, he said: “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Next time, stop after the first sentence, please, it confuses the xians.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Closest I've ever come was wishing there was a Great Sky Fairy in charge of the entire Universe who took my personal welfare as important enough to warrant his/her/its attention.

[PsychoSerenity]

The other day I started wondering about the possibility of alien gods. Given the reasonable probability that intelligent life has evolved somewhere else in the universe, and given the almost exponential growth of technology that we've experienced, - there could be aliens that are essentially immortal super-beings with more technology and a greater understanding of the universe than we can imagine in science fiction.

Maybe they're just playing with us, or trying to raise us up to their level. They might have started life on earth as an experiment to better understand their own origins. Maybe in the past they did perform "miracles" as a way to influence us, and now they're teaching us science instead. Maybe they can even give us an afterlife by uploading us into a collective consciousness when we die.

We just have to believe in them...

[Elessarina]

I have doubts about if I care that much about it for it to possibly create a problem in my life, like with recent events and the date I have had. And to be honest some rather unusual thoughts have entered my mind of late but maybe that's just because I have a slight infatuation..

[Pappa]

The other day I started wondering about the possibility of alien gods. Given the reasonable probability that intelligent life has evolved somewhere else in the universe, and given the almost exponential growth of technology that we've experienced, - there could be aliens that are essentially immortal super-beings with more technology and a greater understanding of the universe than we can imagine in science fiction.

Maybe they're just playing with us, or trying to raise us up to their level. They might have started life on earth as an experiment to better understand their own origins. Maybe in the past they did perform "miracles" as a way to influence us, and now they're teaching us science instead. Maybe they can even give us an afterlife by uploading us into a collective consciousness when we die.

We just have to believe in them...

Everything Erich von Däniken wrote was true.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Everything Erich von Däniken wrote was true.

Except the words, of course.

[Pappa]

Everything Erich von Däniken wrote was true.

Except the words, of course.

The words are all true.... just not in the configuration he arranged them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Everything Erich von Däniken wrote was true.

Except the words, of course.

The words are all true.... just not in the configuration he wrote them.

No, that's a trap. The words you see aren't the words you're used to see, they've been cloned and replaced by the crapoids from Uranus.

[Tero]

Well, it was not so much doubts as much as nostalgia. I gave the Jesus thing a spin when I was 16 and got confirmed. But there was no Jesus. Just a few years back, hanging out with the UUs I decided to give religin one final spin. Not God, creation and all that. I considered for a moment that those enlightened people who might have said a few nice unselfish things [whoever it was that said or thought those things, the actual symbols were men that never existed as such]. I thought they might have been somehow better in touch with life, humanity. So a bit of woo.

But there was nothing. It is all hand waving and wishful thinking by people who are lonely. When you die, you die alone. Leave what you can, hopefully a good memory of you, perhaps a publication of some sort.

[Pappa]

Everything Erich von Däniken wrote was true.

Except the words, of course.

The words are all true.... just not in the configuration he wrote them.

No, that's a trap. The words you see aren't the words you're used to see, they've been cloned and replaced by the crapoids from Uranus.

I lol'd.