The Diety Negate

this was created for a contest. My beielfs

 

I have had many different views in the past on the controversial question whether there is a God or not. After much debate, research and own personal opinion, I have concluded that according to my own beliefs and mine only, there is no God. When I was a preteen I desperately wanted to believe that there was this omniscient being out there in some parallel universe watching over us. I wanted to believe we are on the Earth for a reason and that life isn’t actually just pointless; going nowhere and leading to nothing. After interpreting and dissecting the bible countless times, I couldn’t help but see the inconsistencies, flaws and imperfections within it.

Why do I feel this way? Let me begin with a quote by Christopher Hitchens that seems to fit perfectly. “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” I don’t believe deconstruction of this quote is necessary seeing as the message is quite apparent.

Although I do not believe in the existence of any deity whether it be Krishna, Buddha, the Christian God, or any other of the dozens fabricated, I am strictly referring to the Christian Bible for simplicity reasons. This brings me to another point. Why so any religions? A recent tabulation concluded that there are 10 main religions and some 10,000 sects. Of these, some 6000 exist in Africa, 1200 in the United States, and hundreds in other lands.

Many factors have contributed to the development of new religious groups. Some have said that the various religions all represent different ways of presenting religious truth. But a comparison of their teachings and practices with the Bible indicates otherwise; the diversity of religions is here because people have become followers of men instead of listening to God. It is noteworthy that, to a large extent, teachings they hold in common but that differ from the Bible, originated in ancient Babylon. (See pages 50, 51, under “Babylon the Great.”)

I don't believe in God partly because it violates Occam's razor; the logical rule that states that the most logical explanation is the one that encompasses all the evidence in the simplest manner. No evidence necessitates the inclusion of god, so it is extraneous. Every process of the so called miracle of life can be broken down into chemical reactions guided by various gradients. The fact is simple; God isn't necessary for this world to function.

At this time I would like to include another related quote to better express my beliefs. This basically sums up the “purpose” to our existence here on Earth.
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute"
- Ayn Rand

we are taught that god is an all loving all forgiving all powerful being yet look at the chaos and bloodshed religion has been the core source of, would God allow millions of people to die in the wars, the wars over what? Religion! I will never accept the commonly used defense of such goings on; that evil is necessary so that there can be good. Or that God is testing us, testing our faith by subjecting us through such hardships. Why would someone one hundred percent pure good- as God is perceived as- place us in such predicaments in the first place? Why would he have the need to test us? It seems kind of cruel and vindictive if you ask me. If He created everything, then let me ask, why did He create the devil?

Sure, I’ll admit that religion is good for some people; they need to label things. If you can't explain it label it as "God" or if they are tempted blame the devil. It’s easier than taking responsibility, admitting to our own imperfections and ‘sins.’ I think it’s more desperate then anything.

An omnipotent deity would violate the laws of physics and would be highly illogical due to the paradoxes. People believe whatever they want to believe, including 2000 year old reports. We are still limited to answer how we got here but science has come up with some persuasive, supporting evidence that we were not in fact created by a God. What has religion done to prove their side of the controversy? Presented a book of scriptures taken from a compilation of prophets. Doesn’t seem too convincing. I know many people say faith is blind, you have to believe, they can’t prove the existence of God, which I have absolutely no qualms about. I just feel there is far too much evidence suggesting an alternate theory then theism. If you don't believe in evolution, how can you excuse the instance in which biologists made a rat's eye grow using a fly's gene? The conclusion is that we all came from the same organism, and genes sequence simply defined the rest.

As for the next part of this complex question, if there is a God there is life after death right? Everyone is essentially created by the electrochemical reactions among the 100 billion neurons in each individual brain. Chemical and physical changes to the brain cause extreme changes in personality, memory loss, unbalances; when our brain stops working, we simply are no longer. We are our brains. There is no such thing as a soul, we are defined by the chemicals in our brain that are effected by outside and inside influences, that is who we are, not our ‘souls’ therefore it is improbable to leave our bodies to continue in either heaven or hell. When you die, you die. People don’t want to accept that so they created a diversion to their fear; God.

I say why do we have to have a place after death? Why do we have to have a purpose? The world isn’t candy coated for us so why should "the afterlife" and "our creation" be any different. It’s a hard, solemn thing to fathom but it’s logical. Believe me, I wish there was a great creator to love and protect us, a world after death consisting of splendor and paradise, but the logical part of my mind refuses to trick the rest into falling for the mendacity.

Personally, I wouldn't serve The Christian God even he did exist. It seems God is merciless in the bible and not so forgiving after all. See II Kings, caption 2 verses, 23-25 to see how god sent 2 bears to kill 42 children who mocked of Eli-sha for being bald. Besides being a fairy tale, god is a horror one. If god loves everybody and is all forgiving, then why do all atheists go to hell? Even if they're good people, through and through, why do they go to hell? That makes God sound very egotistical and vain if you ask me. (bring on the thumbs downs)

Is there is a direct correlation between education and lower religious beliefs, showing that the higher the level of education, the less likely someone is to hold religious beliefs? If the earth is only 6000 years old (according to the bible) aren’t there fossils on earth proven to be 40'000 years old, some even older?

People with religious beliefs don't believe in any god but their own, because they consider any other god silly, ridiculous, and without supporting evidence. Why they can't they see that about their own mythical god and see their own hypocritical ways is beyond my ability to comprehend.

In my opinion, the bible is a fairy tale based on other fairy tales. A book called ‘Bible Myths and Their Parallels to Other Religions’ was written 150 years ago, and was used at a Harvard Seminary. It basically proves that most bible stories were copied and pasted between the writings of prophets – some of which weren’t even around during the time of Jesus or regarded of if they were- and aren't even original, let alone real, the priests know this too. It’s all badly written Bronze Age mythology, so the question is, why do you believe in a collection of Bronze Age just-so stories? I’m not saying religion is ridiculous in its place, it's like a baby sucking its thumb-it serves a psychological purpose, but is otherwise pointless. But not ridiculous... not for babies anyway. A Christian I know once said “being nihilistic seems like an awful way to live to me.  At least with religion, life has a designated purpose, whether it's justified or not.” I do agree in a sense, it’s like the made up idol Santa Clause for Christmas to keep the kids good throughout the year, it was continued and developed on through time to keep people in line.

Many people try to work toward a goal of changing something for the better. Often, atheists will work toward making this world better, as in an atheist's eyes, this world and life is the only one we have. Also often, Christians will work toward making the next life better, as in a Christian's eyes, the main reward they receive will be after death. Many Christians do work for this world as well, but the very core of Christianity involves working for a reward in heaven.

Is it then logical to say, that the atheist's view of working toward improvement is better for this world, and that the Christian view would be better for the next life? If we were to look at the perspective of only improving this world, and ignore all other worlds, wouldn't global atheism be seen as the optimal situation for the best possible society?

Now I can see the other side of the coin. If there is a next world, then in terms of only looking at the next world (heaven or hell), the Christian view would be seen as optimal for the best possible outcome of that world (I'm ignoring other religions now for the sake of simplicity).

Which brings me to my point and conclusion. If there is no life after death, is it then safe to conclude that Christianity impedes us as a society in the only world we have? Even if Christianity is right, can we then use the same logic to prove that all other religions have impeded progress in society, and that the world would be better off without religion? And since no singular religion (including Christianity) can prove itself to be valid, isn't it then logical to say that all religions impede progress, and that the world would be better off without any of them?

Now I do see the flip side of this argument. The one problem I always see in discussions with atheists and Christians regarding what is good or better is how does one determine what is good or better. What is good for one might not be good for someone else as he/she defines it, and one's definition of good has no right to trump another's. I am fully aware that global atheism does not mean utopia; there will be a lack of religion based hate but it will not eliminate hate. It is true that most of the smartest and wisest people in the generations before have been atheist, but I do know that that doesn't mean all of them have made life changing contributions to the world. No group can agree on what it means to "make this world better" I’m not sure if there is a connection to the generalization that atheists tend to be progressives and religious people tend to be conservatives. A fully atheistic society does face an ultimate problem. It seems that it would be easy for everyone to move towards a goal of a better world, but the farther along you get, the more divided everyone would become on what that "better world" should look like. When you have no absolute truth or standards, no one person's opinion is greater than another's, and then how are you to decide where to go? I guess you could say that everyone should just go their own way and live peacefully with everyone else, but you cannot deny that also slows and impedes progress, and you also must face the reality that peoples' own ways will on occasion be so polar opposite that both cannot exist at once. Then whose is right?

 I am not naive; I do take in consideration both sides of this life long debate and I do keep in mind that the loudest voice in a group, doesn't always speak for the group. Just because Catholics protest abortion for example, doesn't mean there aren't a lot of pro-choice Catholics out there, and just because these are my views as an atheist, doesn’t mean these are the thoughts and ideas of all atheists.

I don't believe in any deities for the simple reason there is no objective evidence for their reality. Our distant ancestors believed that thunderstorms were caused by the gods racing chariots across the sky. I think we'd both agree that idea is silly. Because science has shown how thunderstorms form. What proof do we have that God exists? That this wondrous place called heaven and the torturous hell exist? A simple book written by man. Do you know how flawed and unreliable that is? Men lie! Jesus, after all, is the very embodiment of many of the ideals of humanism.

Who’s to say that religion wasn't some big conspiracy created to keep mankind in order; fearful of what would happen if they were to "sin" how many times have we seen/heard of men lying for the same purpose? COUNTLESS. Alright so this is where I believe religion came from; the ancients regarded the changing seasons as the death of the sun (winter) and the rebirth of the sun (spring) they thought of the sun as the life of the planet; the thing that allows all life form to live, which was later confused as the son (Jesus) and the twelve disciples who followed Jesus were actually the twelve astrological figures (zodiac) the figures in the sky that followed the sun. The three wise men were three stars lined up behind. You see the ancients lived by the zodiac, lived by the stars and recorded their beliefs in accordance, which I believe was later misinterpreted into the now widely known Christian mythology/religion.

That said I have to say I feel that ultimately, there was no beginning. Time is merely an anomaly. It did not "come from" anywhere, the singularity was the First Cause. There was no "before the Big Bang,” the origin point of the universe's temporal continuum was a singularity. So I'm not a mathematician or biologist talking about the non-existence of God with formulas and numbers, I use my own personal opinions and research to influence this writing. I can’t say for sure whether there is a God or not but that doesn't mean I have to automatically default to a supernatural explanation. I'm also fairly sure that Sasquatch didn't do it... are you saying I would be wrong to rule out the possibility?

In closing I would like to say I do not disrespect any religious person or decree. They are entitled to their own opinions, as am I. I would like to finish off with one more quote spoken by an unknown source. “If we could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.” No one can ignore the significant opposing evidence to religion, not even the religious theirselves.

Author's Note

i hope i didnt offend anyone, everyone is entitled to their beleifs! i think its great that some people beleive in dieties i just cant bing myself to overlook the thwrating evidence. for further depth visit this website. http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm

Reviews

[Onatah]

I respect your opinions although mine are opposite from you. I must say though, finding inconsistencies in the bible does not disprove God. It disproves the bible. I am a firm believer in science and I find many scientific discoveries to provide hypothesizes for the existence of God. The very laws of science that our own atheist scientists have created point to the existence of God, not by my opinion but from a logical and scientific standpoint. Hypothesizes make up the scientific world, and one could conclude that both science and religion rely on faith. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, yet it was created, because nothing can exist without a cause. Whatever created it would have had to be outside of both matter and time, and would also have to be of extreme intelligence provided the design of such a complex universe. The chances of this universe being life prohibiting is beyond chance. This baffles many atheist scientists.

I really liked your write. It was a good passionate expression of your opinion and I respect that. I really hope I didn't offend you. I am trying to be friendly =) If you would like to chat sometime feel free =)

[Leon Agnew]

Probably should be considered an essay, not a story, because it's lacking a plot, and rather serves to fulfill a thesis. Anyhow, it's hardly organized and just as weakly persuasive. It reminds me of the ceaseless nonsense I see posted throughout the Yahoo Answers R&S section.

In truth, I'm a nihilist who believes that, if there is a God, he is either completely forgiving and willing to send us all to heaven, absolutely ruthless and seeking to send all of us to hell, or long gone by now. I find that atheists and Christians are exacly alike when it comes down to the bare bones of it. That's why the Christians don't "bring on the thumbs down" anymore, really.

In time, man will eradicate both religion and himself. why fight over it? Why fight over anything. You make several points, but they're all generic. Redundant. Stick with other forms of writing.