are there atheists among the QLers..?

Yup, lots.

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well, we all have our inclinations.. and i'd love to see how QL becomes a melting pot of all people irregardless of their beliefs or unbeliefs.. =) thanks!

More of a boiling pot then a melting pot really. No end to religious arguments on this site.

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atheism as a way of life.

are you tracing them, man?

Most of my friends are like me - baptizied Christian and raised in 'Christian' families, but we never got to church, pray, or recognize the religious aspect of religious holidays.

None of my friends honestly believe in 'Christianity' but often people ask you which religion you follow (heaven forbid that you don't follow a religion) and usually we just answer 'Christianity' as a way of shutting up the person asking and to avoid further questioning.

If you said 'I don't believe in God' or 'I'm atheist' you'd probably end up copping some sort of tirade as they try to convert you to some particular religion.

But maybe that's just me and my Godless friends. Perhaps I should stop generalizing.

Why on earth would you think a good atheist does not engage in debates????

So what if you're a bad atheist.

What's gonna happen? You'll burn in the hell you don't believe in?

lol - a good atheist must never consider, for even a second, that some sort of higher being could possibly exist!

Firstly, there's nothing wrong with a debate. I think you misunderstand the purpose of debating.

Secondly, why did you particularly associate atheism and debating? It makes no sense. Should a good Christian also not engage in debates? What about good Muslims?

for me, an atheist will not engage in a debate he knows nothing of. he knows nothing of a god or any god, so he doesnt need to speak of something he doesnt recognize.. maybe the right term for that, is being a humble atheist. because when i said, good atheist, the word bad comes out.. LOL

1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2.disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods, or the rejection of theism. It is also defined more broadly as synonymous with any form of nontheism, including the simple absence of belief in deities.

I was asking what the difference was between gods and deities. As one word is derived from the other I'd assumed they meant the same thing.

Yeah, you're right Tallg. I should have picked better words :p

I was trying to highlight a distinction between gods (superior, spiritual bodies greater than ourselves) versus spirits, which, in some religions, exist parallel to the phyisical world, if you get my drift.

who is a atheist? I am a Buddhist & can answer you if I know what is atheist ?

that's why debate never works.. world peace!!=)

Glad you agree with me qatarisun.

NO knowledge of any religion? i said, god or gods, not RELIGIONS.. "he knows nothing of a god or any god, so he doesnt need to speak of something he doesnt recognize.. "

Agree with you QS

Isn't having no knowledge of religion called agnostic?

I think being an atheist means you know A LOT about religion and because of that have chosen to reject it.

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an atheist should be well versed in the confidence of these religions.. reference points of his lack of belief..

I think to be atheist you may have put more thought into your decision to reject religion than a religious person puts into just accepting it.

I think the terms atheist & agnostic need to be defined. An atheist is a person who has made a conscious decision not to believe in or participate in any religion. An agnostic is a person who does not believe in or actively practice any religion, but remains open to accepting one. Sounds like splitting hairs, but there is a big difference between the two.

I think its the other way round andrew. There are so many claims to the existance of dieties, that to reject them all seems like the easy way out.

Why is it that if a person chooses to be an atheist he / she is seen as enlightened and educated about religion. Yet if some professes belief in a religion no matter how much they have studied they are seen as blind followers and astray? Hashim good to see you again.

"I don't think so. Homey don't play dat."
Homey Da Clown

Unlocking the mind.

I AM an agnostic fundamentalist. Some say this is a contradiction, since agnostics have no fundamental beliefs. They haven't decided anything, not even whether or not there is a God.

So how can they defend their path when they remain stuck at the first fork in the road? Even very tolerant people say, we are here on Earth to make a choice, and if you can't decide even the most fundamental religious question, you have failed.

I say, we make choices every day in our lives. We choose how to live, how to treat others and how to spend our limited time in this world. These are the most important choices we make.

God does not require constant affirmations of faith, but would be more interested in the way we treat our fellow creatures than in monuments we erect in its name or praises we bestow. I believe it is as valuable an activity to wonder about God as it is to worship it.

Faith is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It is what we do with it that determines its value.

Some believers ask me: "What are the joys of being agnostic?"

This is what I tell them: "I don't feel joy or sorrow from it. But all I know is that I feel much more freedom to open my mind to possibilities. Religion locks your mind into a box frame and you don't allow yourself to step out of that box for fear of going against what your God tells you and keeps you captive, trapped and in control believing one way and one way only." I believe we all have capabilities to connect to the higher being, the truth of the universe and its ways and the ability to tap into that without religion.

In fact, there are probably more chances of tapping into the universal truth without religion than with it. Perhaps, at one time, there was a purpose for it (religion, I mean), but no more. Religion will disappear and higher conscience people will show their goodness without religion, and you'll be surprised that it is so easy and possible.

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NIL ILLEGITIMI CARBORUNDUM

I think it's just a question of perspective, hashim.

Some people won't believe in something until they see evidence that it exists (or is likely to exist). Others would rather believe in something until there is evidence that it does not exist.

I don't think one is necessarily the 'easy' way out.

Agnosticism is the easy way out. You can go through life ignoring religion and then recant it all on your deathbed.

Surely it's harder to prove there is a god than it is to prove there isn't one?

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NIL ILLEGITIMI CARBORUNDUM

Relative is an issue here. What if you have someone who believes that to take life is a virtue? There must be some sort of guidance that brings all human beings into a coexistace beneficial to all?

I agree.

I don't think that morality or ethics are linked to religion. There are lots of awful people who seem to claim that they are religious, and lots of lovely souls out there who don't follow anything.

Saying that you are religious doesn't make you any more likely to be a 'better' person. In fact there are many cases of people doing dreadful things in the name of religion.

That's generalising it a bit andrew. Take a concrete example: 1450 years a go the arabian peninsula was in chaos. Murder, rape, theft, burring infant girls you name it. The pagen arabs accepted that as their way of life although they recognised that it was causing a lot of misery. After Muhammed came, this all changed after moral values were established and adhered to. And a system was in place to make sure that these values were respected. 400 years later those same arabs were taeching philosophy, medicine and mathematics in Spain and passed on a lot of valuable knowledge to Europe in the process.

Okay. You're right. Saying you are a member of a particular religion may make you more likely to be a 'better' person (less likely to rape, murder or whatever) but it's no guarentee.

Please let's don't get into a distracting religious argument based on the relative merits of different faiths, but all I'll say is that there are plenty of well known examples of people doing 'bad' (we can more or less all agree that they are 'bad') things *in the name of religion - honour killings, capital punishment, the killing of innocent civilians etc.

I wonder what would happen if the Americans elected a President who said he had no faith in a religion, rather than one who is supposedly a 'good, christian man'.

yes, moral standards had walked a long long way before humans were able to establish a concrete one.. and we're luckier now, that we don't have to undergo those grave setbacks that happened along the course of human history..

I think you're missing the point, Hashim.

There are people who do some *seriously* bad things not DESPITE of their religion, but BECAUSE of it.

Again, I'm not trying to generalize, but in western culture if you're sister goes out and gets pregnant to her boss, you shrug your shoulders and say 'it's her life'.

There are some people who think that their RELIGION commands them to go out and murder her for bringing dishonour on the family.

One of the benefits of atheism is that it puts your own life into your own hands, and it also tends to make people think that what other people do is other people's business. So they don't go on crusades (literally) to stop people drinking alcohol, or fornicating, or whatever.

for me, the advocacy of every religion is not enough to uplift the human condition on poverty.. but to have solace on them is a precious thing for every human being. being religious person i guess can never be synonymous to being an upright human being. on my view, its our human conviction. our "own" convinction.

I would argue that some of the worst conflicts have been between religious groups, not people just fighting for politics.

Look at the Middle East conflict - a land of people who believe strongly in two different religions, both of which supposedly teach tolerance and preach happy co-habitation.

If they can't make it work...?

The Taliban were/are seriously religious chaps, and they are hardly bringing peace and security to Afghanistan.

The Horn of Africa is full of religious battles too right now.

Mugabe won't give up his role as President, stating that 'only God can remove me'...

the list could go on.

Yes, there are plenty of examples of people fighting for political reasons too, to be sure.

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

I do also concede that a lot of the bad things I mentioned (female circumcision, honour killings etc) predate 'modern' religions.

But you are now accepting that modern religion failed to eradicate these things then, right?

As Brandylady is saying, people are hiding behind religion to commit awful crimes.

When people stopped adhering to religion these bad thing s started to resurface man98. That should prove that we do need religion to coexist.

And conflict between religious groups is a totally different debate that would change the topic, especially when generalized in that way man98.

Andrew, yes people hide behind religion in some instances. However in the end the problem is the person not the religion. If I buy a car and start running over people on the street, is the problem me or the car? I don't care what the PC cops say, some people are evil and the world would be better off without them (Hitler for one comes to mind). So we have to make a difference between the claim and the person making the claim.

"I don't think so. Homey don't play dat."
Homey Da Clown

so you're saying the only basis of human conviction is religion? to lead a good life you need religion? so without religion, human conviction will not exist? conviction that to sustain its own survival, they need to care for their fellow human beings, so we without religion, we can't achieve this? historically. we can. whoever told us, that the world was conquered because of religion. and rampant killings of non-believers, or pagans, or atheists branded as heretics, do you think this was based on the conviction of one's religion?