Why do Atheists Hate Religion?

[Buffer Overflow]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

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[MakingMoneyHoney]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

Before Jesus came, all Christians would have been Jewish... there's an interesting piece on Judaism belief here.

[Lauda]

Belief is not a choice. It's a compulsion beyond the realm of choice, based on observation/evidence; in science argument and consensus.

Desirability is not a requisite of the truth. I do not choose what I believe because I perceive it as the more attraction option. I'm compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not![/size]

The truth does not require your approval. It simply is.

I like where you are going with this. The truth does not condemn you to rot in hell if you do not worship it. Humans are weird when it comes to many aspects of our lives. Sometimes it is very tiring to live among most people on Earth. True statement: "we don't know"; Delusional statement: "it was God". You get to decide on which side you want to be on.

Since someone mentioned it, I am also in favor of Buddhism.

[mattiadeabtc]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

simple, people had no access to paradise. 
 I believe that the fear of death (everyone has it) is able to convince us of nonsense very large, such as religion

[BADecker]

I'm not claiming that any theory is fact,

That's great. If I was pointing at your personal claims, I shouldn't have been, and didn't really mean to be.

but the theory you're talking about (the big bang) doesn't use the scientific method, as it can't be observed.  But if you track the speed and direction of matter in space, it is moving outwards from a single point.  If you care to understand why they think that, you should watch the Cosmos series by Neil Degrasse Tyson, or a Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.  Anyways, it remains a theory and it aligns with observable evidence today, but it's not fact.

True about the Big Bang not being scientific method. Is it science? The line between what some people call science, and whatever else they might call it, can be very hazy at times. The point wasn't to focus on the Big Bang. The point was to focus on the fiction side of science.

How are you coming up with the "fact" that God exist?  What are the facts?

This is not an easy subject. First, the scientific fact that God exists as explained by three of the fundamental laws of science, doesn't have anything to do with any of the religions on earth. At least not from the scientific standpoint.

The three chunks of scientific law are:
1. Cause and effect (action and reaction);
2. Complex universe;
3. Entropy throughout the universe.
I am not going to make a big thing out of this. I am not going to go and dig up all kinds of scientific teaching that shows links to it or other reference. I will simply explain it somewhat. My wording may not be the best, but you will get the idea. Once you have the idea, if you want to prove or disprove it to yourself, start researching.

Entropy is all-pervading. Everything slows down, wears out, falls apart, oxidizes, dies, etc.  Everything that is new and fresh becomes that way at the expense of something else wearing out. We see nothing in the universe that explains for a fact, the reverse of entropy... how things could exist without entropy having turned them to dust long ago.

There is great complexity in the universe. Perhaps the mind of mankind is the greatest complexity of the universe. Perhaps it is man's brain. Whatever is greatest, these or something else, the facts of our thinking, our emotions, our consciousness, our personal identity... the facts that these exist show fantastically great complexity in the universe.

Everything that we know of operates by cause and effect, action and reaction. Newton even made it into his Third Law. Because of this, from a pure science standpoint, everything in all the complexity, all our thinking and free will, has been caused by something causing it all to happen. Essentially, we don't have any free will. The thing that we call free will is a product of countless chemical and bio-electric actions and reactions in our bodies, and from without. If there is something outside of action and reaction (cause and effect), science has not found it. The very interesting point about cause and effect is that there is no pure random. The thing that we call "random" is simply our inability to see the multitudes of causes behind something. Everything that we know operates by cause and effect.

Cause and effect over the thousands of years has maintained a tremendous amount of complexity in things in the face of entropy. This shows us the fact that the mind of mankind was far more able in the past before entropy had the time to tear down its abilities. Another thing this shows is that everything in the whole universe is "pre-programmed," by Whatever started cause and effect. Cause and effect must have had a start. Otherwise entropy would have neutralized everything by now.

A person who is a billiards/pool player is good if he can, knowingly, set a string of five balls into action, the fifth going into a predetermined pocket. He taps the first ball, which hits the second, which knocks the third, which rolls into the fourth, which bumps the fifth into the pocket. Consider how great the Great First Cause must have been to have started all the cause-and-effect actions that continue to maintain this great amount of universal complexity in the face of all-pervading entropy.

Because the mind and brain of man are as complex as they are, the mind of the Great First Cause must be complex beyond understanding. Why? Because greater does not come from lesser. Entropy keeps it from happening. The complexity of the Great First Cause makes It fit the dictionary definition of the word "God."

Not only does God exist, but also, God is so extremely great beyond us that we are essentially less than nothing when compared with God.

And if we are going to be religious, why is Christianity the religion of choice?  Does it have something to do with being raised Christian?  Have you taken as deep a look into other religions and consciously made a decision?  Is your current perspective one that has been conditioned?  I'm not trying to be offensive, but I'm asking rhetorically for you to think about it.  There is a VERY high correlation of people selecting the religion that is dominant in their childhood environment.  Meaning, if you were born in Indonesia, would Jesus still be your God?  No, it wouldn't.  You'd be conditioned to be Muslim, unless you lived in Bali, and then you'd be Hindu.

Because of our remoteness, because of our inability to see the complexity in cause and effect, we use probability. Christianity is the religion of choice because of the odds it has overcome to be the religion that it is.

In the way that Christianity came into existence, the nation of Israel, their activities, the way they made the Bible record, the prophesies that exist, have been fulfilled, and are being fulfilled, the fact that the true Hebrew Bible has changed little over the ages even though it was copied by many scribes over and over, the numbers of ancient copies and fragments, and a lot more things, show that the Christian religion as it stands today couldn't exist. Since it couldn't exist, yet it is here, shows that there is more to it than simply something mankind could do. The Christian religion is a God production.

Do your own research into it.

How is science fictional?  When you get sick, do you go to a doctor or do you pray to God?  You use all the technology that has been discovered by scientists, even the fact that you and I can communicate over electrical signals shows where science is at.  Science sends rockets into orbit dude...how is it fictional if it works?

Not everything about science is fictional. God made science - combinations of complex actions and reactions, some of which we can see, other of which we can't see. But the scientific theories are fictions as far as we know. Until such a time that we prove them to be fact, they are fiction... and they stand right alongside science fact, so that often we do not know where the division lies.

[BADecker]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

simple, people had no access to paradise.  
 I believe that the fear of death (everyone has it) is able to convince us of nonsense very large, such as religion

It was Jesus Who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden after they sinned. The promise of salvation was expressed the first time, then. However, the promise existed right from the beginning, because Jesus is God and existed right from the beginning. God, Himself, trusted in His own promise that He made to Himself.

Then, throughout the Old Testament, we hear about angels. But we also hear about a special angel... the angel of the Lord. When you see in the O.T. the term "the angel of the Lord," you are looking at Jesus.

Time to do your studies if you are really interested.

[BADecker]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

It's a recent event because the universe is a recent event. We have a young earth and a young universe.

Jesus is God right along with His Father and the Holy spirit. He was there at the beginning of our young universe, a recent event.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

simple, people had no access to paradise. 
 I believe that the fear of death (everyone has it) is able to convince us of nonsense very large, such as religion

Why would anyone fear death?

[Buffer Overflow]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

simple, people had no access to paradise. 
 I believe that the fear of death (everyone has it) is able to convince us of nonsense very large, such as religion

Why would anyone fear death?

Since nobody actually knows what happens when we die, it's the unknown I guess.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

You can only get to heaven through Jesus Christ.

What did the humans do before he was born then?
His birth was a very recent event in the scheme of things remember.

simple, people had no access to paradise. 
 I believe that the fear of death (everyone has it) is able to convince us of nonsense very large, such as religion

Why would anyone fear death?

Since nobody actually knows what happens when we die, it's the unknown I guess.

But religious people believe in some sort of afterlife, whether it be reincarnation or heaven, etc. And atheists believe that there's nothing after death. So in every case, there's nothing to be afraid of.

Unless atheists are afraid there is an afterlife they don't know about....

[Beliathon]

Unless atheists are afraid there is an afterlife they don't know about....

There is nothing to fear in death either way. If you assert that there's another life after this one, to remain logically consistent you must also accept the assertion that there is a third life after the next one, and a fourth life after that one, and so on ad infinatum. An afterlife is utterly meaningless without an after-afterlife.

So for the sake of argument let's accept the wild premise that there is another life after this one. If that life is mostly pleasurable, great, you stick around and enjoy it. Should that life prove to be more painful than pleasurable, you can simply use suicide to skip it and move on to the next life in the chain.

So as I've said before, there's nothing to fear in death - only suffering is worth fearing. We're in control, always, thanks to our ever-present ability to "opt out" of any life we don't like via suicide.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Unless atheists are afraid there is an afterlife they don't know about....

There is nothing to fear in death either way. If you assert that there's another life after this one, to remain logically consistent you must also accept the assertion that there is a third life after the next one, and a fourth life after that one, and so on ad infinatum. An afterlife is utterly meaningless without an after-afterlife.

So for the sake of argument let's accept the wild premise that there is another life after this one. If that life is mostly pleasurable, great, you stick around and enjoy it. Should that life prove to be more painful than pleasurable, you can simply use suicide to skip it and move on to the next life in the chain.

So as I've said before, there's nothing to fear in death - only suffering is worth fearing. We're in control, always, thanks to our ever-present ability to "opt out" of any lives we don't like via suicide.

Christians aren't supposed to believe in reincarnation. I don't.

I don't know of any religions that states that suicide is a good thing. It's murder (of oneself), and so it's a sin for Christians. Those who believe in reincarnation, aren't keen on it either.

"Suicide is generally frowned upon by Buddhists as something to be avoided because it is thought to be an act that tends to lead to a less auspicious rebirth. I believe it is counted among the “actions that are difficult to overcome” in one of Buddha’s recorded talks. " The Buddhist View on Suicide

So, suicide isn't really a good option if you believe in a religion. But atheists don't think it's a sin, or something detrimental. However, they don't believe in an afterlife at all. So I'm not sure why you say atheists can opt out of "any life", if you don't believe in afterlives....  

Atheist do not hate religion, they just realize that religion is not much more than ancient stories with some historical value.

Some atheists do hate religion, or else the OP wouldn't have started the thread.

[Beliathon]

Christians aren't supposed to believe in reincarnation. I don't.

My child, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention to Teacher. Once again:

Belief is not a choice. It's a compulsion beyond the realm of choice, based on observation/evidence; in science argument and consensus.

Desirability is not a requisite of the truth. I do not choose what I believe because I perceive it as the more attraction option. I'm compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not!

The truth does not require your approval. It simply is.

I don't know of any religions that states that suicide is a good thing. It's murder (of oneself), and so it's a sin for Christians.

Religion is how the power elite controlled the peasants for many generations before the Nation State took over that role. Fear is a prison for your mind. This tragic fear of divine retribution would likely prevent you from committing the self-mercy of suicide even if you were enduring days or week of torture.

Not months, though, and certainly not years. Pain is an inexhaustible resource, just like pleasure. Under those circumstances, sooner or later your superstition would break, unable to bear the weight of such suffering. Eventually you'd come to your senses and end it. Deep down you know this to be true.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Christians aren't supposed to believe in reincarnation. I don't.

My child, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention to Teacher. Once again:

Belief is not a choice. It's a compulsion beyond the realm of choice, based on observation/evidence; in science argument and consensus.

Desirability is not a requisite of the truth. I do not choose what I believe because I perceive it as the more attraction option. I'm compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not!

The truth does not require your approval. It simply is.

I am certainly not your child. You condescend to me, and speak foolishness. You'll see the truth one day.

I don't know of any religions that states that suicide is a good thing. It's murder (of oneself), and so it's a sin for Christians.

Religion is how the power elite controlled the peasants for many generations before the Nation State took over that role. Fear is a prison for your mind. This tragic fear of divine retribution would likely prevent you from committing the self-mercy of suicide even if you were enduring days or week of torture.

Not months, though, and certainly not years. Pain is an inexhaustible resource, just like pleasure. Under those circumstances, sooner or later your superstition would break, unable to bear the weight of such suffering. Eventually you'd come to your senses and end it. Deep down you know this to be true.

No power elite controlled me into believing in God. You have not felt the Holy Spirit, or have not recognized it for what it was.

I am not afraid. I do not fear death.

You seem to urge people into committing suicide as a way to get out of life. I hope others see the grim ghoulish beliefs you hold, that you do not even believe in. You don't believe in afterlife, yet you claim that one who commits suicide will have one free from consequence. Shame on you for building it up as an answer for avoiding pain, you know not what you do.

[Beliathon]

You seem to urge people into committing suicide as a way to get out of life escape potential suffering.

Fixed that for you.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

You seem to urge people into committing suicide as a way to get out of life escape potential suffering.

Fixed that for you.

Shame.

You supposedly have so much love for transgenders and those who are teased, and yet your message to them is to kill themselves. If not, you are a hypocrite. But we already knew that right?

[Beliathon]

You supposedly have so much love for transgenders and those who are teased, and yet your message to them is to kill themselves.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

I never advocated comitting suicide to avoid ANY suffering - a certain amount of pain is an inevitable part of human existence. Suicide shouldn't be impulsively done. It ought to be considered carefully, holistically in the context of one's personal experience of suffering so far, weighing the probability (and quantity) of more suffering to come.

I am generally opposed to non-terminally-ill young people (let's say under ~20) committing suicide. I would discourage it in any suicidal youth, simply because life so often gets better. That said, I still hold that it is the inalienable right of every individual to make that choice for themselves, regardless of age or intellect.

Shame.

[the joint]

Christians aren't supposed to believe in reincarnation. I don't.

My child, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention to Teacher. Once again:

Belief is not a choice. It's a compulsion beyond the realm of choice, based on observation/evidence; in science argument and consensus.

Desirability is not a requisite of the truth. I do not choose what I believe because I perceive it as the more attraction option. I'm compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not!

The truth does not require your approval. It simply is.

I don't know of any religions that states that suicide is a good thing. It's murder (of oneself), and so it's a sin for Christians.

Religion is how the power elite controlled the peasants for many generations before the Nation State took over that role. Fear is a prison for your mind. This tragic fear of divine retribution would likely prevent you from committing the self-mercy of suicide even if you were enduring days or week of torture.

Not months, though, and certainly not years. Pain is an inexhaustible resource, just like pleasure. Under those circumstances, sooner or later your superstition would break, unable to bear the weight of such suffering. Eventually you'd come to your senses and end it. Deep down you know this to be true.

"My child?" Wow, how pretentious can you get?  You said you're a "psych major."  What are you?  Late teens?  Early 20's?  Bold, bold statements for a student to say...

[freeyourmind]

I'm not claiming that any theory is fact,

That's great. If I was pointing at your personal claims, I shouldn't have been, and didn't really mean to be.

but the theory you're talking about (the big bang) doesn't use the scientific method, as it can't be observed.  But if you track the speed and direction of matter in space, it is moving outwards from a single point.  If you care to understand why they think that, you should watch the Cosmos series by Neil Degrasse Tyson, or a Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.  Anyways, it remains a theory and it aligns with observable evidence today, but it's not fact.

True about the Big Bang not being scientific method. Is it science? The line between what some people call science, and whatever else they might call it, can be very hazy at times. The point wasn't to focus on the Big Bang. The point was to focus on the fiction side of science.

How are you coming up with the "fact" that God exist?  What are the facts?

This is not an easy subject. First, the scientific fact that God exists as explained by three of the fundamental laws of science, doesn't have anything to do with any of the religions on earth. At least not from the scientific standpoint.

The three chunks of scientific law are:
1. Cause and effect (action and reaction);
2. Complex universe;
3. Entropy throughout the universe.
I am not going to make a big thing out of this. I am not going to go and dig up all kinds of scientific teaching that shows links to it or other reference. I will simply explain it somewhat. My wording may not be the best, but you will get the idea. Once you have the idea, if you want to prove or disprove it to yourself, start researching.

Entropy is all-pervading. Everything slows down, wears out, falls apart, oxidizes, dies, etc.  Everything that is new and fresh becomes that way at the expense of something else wearing out. We see nothing in the universe that explains for a fact, the reverse of entropy... how things could exist without entropy having turned them to dust long ago.

There is great complexity in the universe. Perhaps the mind of mankind is the greatest complexity of the universe. Perhaps it is man's brain. Whatever is greatest, these or something else, the facts of our thinking, our emotions, our consciousness, our personal identity... the facts that these exist show fantastically great complexity in the universe.

Everything that we know of operates by cause and effect, action and reaction. Newton even made it into his Third Law. Because of this, from a pure science standpoint, everything in all the complexity, all our thinking and free will, has been caused by something causing it all to happen. Essentially, we don't have any free will. The thing that we call free will is a product of countless chemical and bio-electric actions and reactions in our bodies, and from without. If there is something outside of action and reaction (cause and effect), science has not found it. The very interesting point about cause and effect is that there is no pure random. The thing that we call "random" is simply our inability to see the multitudes of causes behind something. Everything that we know operates by cause and effect.

Cause and effect over the thousands of years has maintained a tremendous amount of complexity in things in the face of entropy. This shows us the fact that the mind of mankind was far more able in the past before entropy had the time to tear down its abilities. Another thing this shows is that everything in the whole universe is "pre-programmed," by Whatever started cause and effect. Cause and effect must have had a start. Otherwise entropy would have neutralized everything by now.

A person who is a billiards/pool player is good if he can, knowingly, set a string of five balls into action, the fifth going into a predetermined pocket. He taps the first ball, which hits the second, which knocks the third, which rolls into the fourth, which bumps the fifth into the pocket. Consider how great the Great First Cause must have been to have started all the cause-and-effect actions that continue to maintain this great amount of universal complexity in the face of all-pervading entropy.

Because the mind and brain of man are as complex as they are, the mind of the Great First Cause must be complex beyond understanding. Why? Because greater does not come from lesser. Entropy keeps it from happening. The complexity of the Great First Cause makes It fit the dictionary definition of the word "God."

Not only does God exist, but also, God is so extremely great beyond us that we are essentially less than nothing when compared with God.

And if we are going to be religious, why is Christianity the religion of choice?  Does it have something to do with being raised Christian?  Have you taken as deep a look into other religions and consciously made a decision?  Is your current perspective one that has been conditioned?  I'm not trying to be offensive, but I'm asking rhetorically for you to think about it.  There is a VERY high correlation of people selecting the religion that is dominant in their childhood environment.  Meaning, if you were born in Indonesia, would Jesus still be your God?  No, it wouldn't.  You'd be conditioned to be Muslim, unless you lived in Bali, and then you'd be Hindu.

Because of our remoteness, because of our inability to see the complexity in cause and effect, we use probability. Christianity is the religion of choice because of the odds it has overcome to be the religion that it is.

In the way that Christianity came into existence, the nation of Israel, their activities, the way they made the Bible record, the prophesies that exist, have been fulfilled, and are being fulfilled, the fact that the true Hebrew Bible has changed little over the ages even though it was copied by many scribes over and over, the numbers of ancient copies and fragments, and a lot more things, show that the Christian religion as it stands today couldn't exist. Since it couldn't exist, yet it is here, shows that there is more to it than simply something mankind could do. The Christian religion is a God production.

Do your own research into it.

How is science fictional?  When you get sick, do you go to a doctor or do you pray to God?  You use all the technology that has been discovered by scientists, even the fact that you and I can communicate over electrical signals shows where science is at.  Science sends rockets into orbit dude...how is it fictional if it works?

Not everything about science is fictional. God made science - combinations of complex actions and reactions, some of which we can see, other of which we can't see. But the scientific theories are fictions as far as we know. Until such a time that we prove them to be fact, they are fiction... and they stand right alongside science fact, so that often we do not know where the division lies.

I'm aligned with most of what you said there, but all of that can be true with or without a god.  That is to say that this evolution can be done with or without a supervisor.

I understand how Christianity came to be, but I was asking why it came to be your religion of choice, and whether it had something to do with the way you're raised, or what your parents chose to believe in.  I see very few people that have a choice beyond what their family believes in.

For me, being atheist has little to do with science.  It's not the choice of "believing" in science that voids religion.  It's just because I wasn't conditioned to believe in something as a child.  My parents were lightly religious, in that they probably felt a little guilt for not saying so, but there was no weekly get together in a building, or any prayers.  So during my formative years, it wasn't pushed on me, and it never had any significance in my life.  Also, the religious folks that I was exposed to as a child believed in blind faith, and were sheltered folks that I wouldn't say had the most open mind or diverse life experience.  So it wasn't a group that I ever wanted to join, and there were also a lot of politics and gossip involved.  So I grew up without subscribing to a religion seriously, and later gained an interest in it, not for belief, but just for how impressive it is that it gained almost the whole world's subscription, and of course at that time there was little tolerance for those that didn't believe.  So religious belief was built into law, and it still is.

If I was conditioned by my parents as a kid and all my friends were part of a social religious community, then I'd likely be religious too.  I actually grew up in a very multicultural place, where there is no dominant religion and you can constantly see other versions of religion in front of you.  I live in Toronto, and it's definitely one of the most multicultural cities in the world if not the the most.  That has an effect on religion.  Most people around here just lose touch with religion, as it is a significant commitment.  It would be tough for me to fit religion into my life even if I wanted to.  So in short what I'm saying is it's not based on science.  It's the value of the religion in the surrounding environment...and the value here is low.

Anyways man, you seem like a nice and patient individual, and that counts more to me than religious belief.  Maybe one day you'll find yourself eating some psilocybin mushrooms/peyote/LSD/DMT/ayahuasca, and you'll better understand my point of view

[MakingMoneyHoney]

You supposedly have so much love for transgenders and those who are teased, and yet your message to them is to kill themselves.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

I never advocated comitting suicide to avoid ANY suffering - a certain amount of pain is an inevitable part of human existence. Suicide shouldn't be impulsively done. It ought to be considered carefully, holistically in the context of one's personal experience of suffering so far, weighing the probability (and quantity) of more suffering to come.

I am generally opposed to non-terminally-ill young people (let's say under ~20) committing suicide. I would discourage it in any suicidal youth, simply because life so often gets better. That said, I still hold that it is the inalienable right of every individual to make that choice for themselves, regardless of age or intellect.

I'm only responding to things you've said. I didn't exaggerate, or make up your words. Everyone can click back and see them.

You said, after suffering, people would come to their senses and kill themselves.

Eventually you'd come to your senses and end it. Deep down you know this to be true.

You believe that those who suffer immensely should kill themselves, because that is the sensible thing to do.

Transgenders suffer from being teased to the point that they kill themselves. This bugs you, to the point that you blame all Christians, for some reason.

And yet, are ok with them killing themselves because they decided that their suffering was so immense they couldn't take living anymore? No, in this post you say no, in other posts you say this bugs you. In the last post, you say yes.

The reason this bugs you so much, to the point that you have to say your words were exaggerated or made up, is because you're being hypocritical, it's a cognitive dissonance.