Ask the Atheist

Logic, Common sense and science.
Faith in magic is just plain silly.

How do you handle crises if you don't believe in a higher power?
- think over the situation you are in - what made it happen? what does it do? what can be possible solutions? maybe asking some other person for help... many things you can do and there is no need for a god or two

What if you experience something paranormal, do you trust your eyesight?
- eyes can be decieved cf. optical illusions - just because something looks funny doesn't mean it is "paranormal"

What if you are given a serious prognosis by a doctor and you prove him and other doctors wrong?
- a doctor is not per se an ultimate expert - he can make mistakes, why not? he's human after all - problem is: can he admit he made a mistake?

What do you put it down to when strange things happen in your life and you can't explain them?
- coincidence, accident... dunno, depends on the "strange thing" - i know i cannot explain everything that happens to me, but this does not imply there's something "higher" that does it

Are you an atheist because you really don't believe or are you simply angry at God for not giving you help in something you wanted?
- i simply do not believe in gods

To answer your first question, why would an irrational belief in a non-existent deity be of any use in a crisis? I handle them by calling upon my own abilities to solve the problem, or make the best of it. What would anyone else do?

Secondly, if I were to experience something I couldn't explain, I would seek to find the rational, scientific explanation for what happened. I don't presume that something unusual is "paranormal", whatever you actually mean by that.

Thirdly, if my body and immune system were capable of beating the odds, why would I ascribe that success to an irrational belief in a non-existent deity? That doesn't make sense.

Fourth, your world view seems to lead you to believe that "strange things" equate to "caused by a supernatural force". This is not rational. Should I also ascribe to an all-powerful deity the causation behind why it never rains on Tuesdays that eat kippers?

Last, I really don't believe. Why would you think I'd be angry at something that doesn't exist?

-John

this site is the devil lies and he is real and the devil like to kill people day and night and he won't and you should now that creation and more thing is that god could wipe out if god decide that and you guys should start believe in god and if you do sue me being christian to you and thats why god put his son to suffer your worst pain of death and died on the cross and after three days and jesus forgive people sin and think about real careful what you say to me

In a crisis, I accept that I'm not going to get any help from a god who doesn't exist (I might not even consider it at the time) and I try to work out what I myself can do to get everyone through it. The inner strength that people pray for in such times? I recognise that it comes from within them, and they externalise it to allow themselves to use it. I just get to work and drag it out of myself.

If I experience something apparently paranormal, I look for an explanation. As an atheist, I don't have a default explanation (God) if I can't find the real one, so if I come up empty I regard it as unsolved and leave it that way. I don't enjoy not knowing, but I maintain hope for a future explanation.

If my body proved a bunch of doctors wrong, I'd accept that they were wrong and be happy I was alive. Then I'd volunteer to help them find out WHY they were wrong. Humans are fallible, even really smart ones.

I'm an atheist because I don't believe in any god. People who are angry at God himself are not atheists because they think there is someone there to hate. Atheists may be angry at religions, their adherents and their actions, but you have to acknowledge a god to be angry at him. We don't do that.

I personally am not often angry at any of the above anyway.

Cheers.
- LX

Yes, I can honestly say that I do not know for sure that God does not exist. As you put it, I don't know.

That doesn't take me far. I also don't know for sure that there's a booby trap in my office drawer which will explode and kill me when I go to work tomorrow. Nevertheless, I'm going to open it and put my lunch in there. Just because I can't be sure something isn't there doesn't mean I should assume it is. Atheism isn't a belief in absence (that's "strong" atheism). It's just a lack of belief.

Not to diminish the joy your motherhood has given you, but what part of the birth was a miracle? You've watched your unborn baby grow from the first ultrasound, according to the DNA code we all have. Before that, you know where the egg and the sperm came from. The birth itself was a muscular movement and a medical procedure. Understand that I agree a baby is a wonderful thing, but what part of its development or birth would have been impossible without a god?

Actually considering the process, Caradawn, is one way someone can have a child and not believe in God. The question is not rhetorical.

You've hit the nail on the head, actually. Even if somebody proved a miracle beyond doubt, there's no way to attribute it. The chance of any particular supernatural being existing, given that there are an infinite possible number and most of them are mutually exclusive (for example, Zeus and Jupiter can't both exist), is one in infinity, even if there's one at all.

The identities we bestow on any higher powers which might be out there are very likely to be our choice alone and nothing to do with what they're actually like.

You deal with it, whether you pray for strength, Gods intervention or what ever first is pretty much irrelevent. YOU deal with it, or ride out the storm.

I'd turn that question round tho and ask what a theist does when they are confronted with a crisis? Pray for God to interevene? Pray for strength to get through it? Well, surely the all powerful God put the crisis in your path in the first place, so why ask him for help? Surely he already knows what you need, so how does prayer help you, except to give ur mind time to reflect on the next course of action perhaps. Or to beg God to get you thru something that he put you through in the first place? This is assuming an omnipotent, omnipresent power of course.

I'd need an example of a paranormal event to work with, but I'd first go to Skepticsdictionary, and James Randi's websites and see if there is any presendent for it, is there an explanation that I simply don't know about?

Odd things happen in the world, and I do not know every thing, I'd like to, but I never will, so I can happily say that there are things that I can not explain, and will never be able to. To chalk it up to god does not answer the question, it is simply saying I DO NOT KNOW, but using different words.

Doctors make mistakes, and disease remition is a widely recognised, documented fact. This is nothing new or unusal. I won't even go in to the placebo effect here. When told of miraculous healings, I would need proof of the initial condition, and proof of the spontanious healing. Then I may take it seriously. If a faith healer could repeatedly cure people with PROOVEN illness, then I'd consider converting to what ever religion they were from, and worship that super natural power. As yet, this has not happened. I'd consider that evidence tho, after careful consdieration and review of the actual facts.

Thanks

It has been said that there is never an athiest in a foxhole. Certainly, it is easy to see why. Like Camus' protagionist in The Stranger, one looks up into the benign indifference of the cosmos, and, who is there to call upon when you find yourself beset by all forms of woe?

I rather believe that long ago we invented gods and hoped to propitiate these invented personalities in order to deal with droughts, ravenious beasts, hostile alien tribes and other difficuties. As we came to also believe that these spiritual beings were rational, then we suppossed that they could be placated, appeased and even given over to assisting our primitive ancestors. In time, stories about them in the form of myths and legends developed as did rituals and practices designed to formalize our manner of approaching them. So,certainly, we needed them because, without them, the world was a dark,cold, hostile place.

Now, however, as we move into the 21st century, we must seek the fullness of our growth as a species such that we take responsibility for ourselves and the difficulties in which we sometimes find ourselves. Maturity for rational beings is just that, of course, the stage of growth in which one assumes responsibility.

Where does an atheist go when he has a terrible disease, or is faced with overwhelming grief, however, is the direct question?

It might offer relief to retreat to the warm, but, imaginary womb carved out for us by our primitive forefathers. It is easy enough to do, of course, because of the tradition and longstanding social acceptance which christianity, for example, is able to offer, but, it isn't real. It isn't genuine. What is real is one's self, one's own rationality, one's own inner strength. These are the real fruits of a meaningful and productive life from which one may draw strength. One may hope too for a oneness with a rational universe, that there is perhaps an interconnectedness to which we are all part. Consciousness is a a phenonomen of great mystry and awe. Without believing in gods, demons, and mythological spiritual forms, there is profound mystry in the cosmos and to which we can all know we are a part---and that may certainly provide comfort of a more authenic kind. That is where the mature rational man must retreat when he is overwhelmed with the tribulations of existence