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10 atheist quotes that will make you question religion


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2019 Apr 4, 7:14am   3,654 views  87 comments

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From psychology to neuroscience, what we believe is not nearly as relevant as why we do. The first few quotes below are big-picture social questions, while the remaining come from neuroscience and psychology books. They are not all atheistic per se, but they do point to the fact that humans tend to think very highly of themselves and what we believe, and that there are biological explanations for why we feel the way we do. The more we recognize that, the more likely we are to stop thinking there is only one way to discover truth.

On ego

"How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan?" — Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Here comes logic

"Monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: To argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe—and He's evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief." — Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The difference is often language

"In America, belief in the unreal seems to be very fungible. Individuals don't so much abandon religious fantasy in favor of reason as find different fantasies that better suit their particular excitement and credulity quotients." — Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

A Buddhist approach

"Mindfulness accepts as its focus of inquiry whatever arises in one's field of awareness, no matter how disturbing or painful it might be. One neither seeks nor expects to find some greater truth lurking behind the veil of appearances. What appears and how you respond to it: that alone is what matters." — Stephen Batchelor, Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist

Enter Darwin

"Comprehension, far from being a Godlike talent from which all design must flow, is an emergent effect of systems of uncomprehending competence: natural selection on the one hand, and mindless computation on the other." — Daniel Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

The physical can be spiritual

"Evolution simply happened—foresightless, by chance, without goal. There is nobody to despise or rebel against—not even ourselves. And this is not some bizarre form of neurophilosophical nihilism but rather a point of intellectual honesty and great spiritual depth." — Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self

Superego

"Supernatural thinking is simply the natural consequence of failing to match our intuitions with the true reality of the world." — Bruce M. Hood, The Science of Superstition: How the Developing Brain Creates Supernatural Beliefs

Out of body is still in the body

"Out-of-body flight "really happens," then—it is a real physical event, but only in the patient's brain and, as a result, in his subjective experience. The out-of-body state is, by and large, an exacerbated form of the dizziness that we all experience when our vision disagrees with our vestibular system, as on a rocking boat." — Stanislas Dehaene, Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts

Randomness produces beautiful (or efficient) results

"If you let something tumble long enough, it comes out almost perfect. Such is the power of random collisions and patience, and that constitutes the sum total of nature's intelligence. All the rough edges, the flaws, the things that don't work are systematically dispatched by natural selection. What remains and carries on into the next generation and the next after that and so on are the advantageous aspects, what does work what makes survival easier. And survival is the fuel of natural selection." — Rodolfo R. Llinas, I of the vortex: From Neurons to Self

"Everything happens for a reason"

"A long line of research in cognitive science has documented that people make causal attributions about events as a means of maintaining personal control. It is the feeling that things are spinning out of control that motivates the human brain to find a pattern in events and try to predict what is going to happen next. The left-brain interpreter thus will be activated whenever the individual senses a lack of control. Superstitions and conspiracy theories can be seen as the societal consequences of the interpreter's drive to find a causal explanation for events that are seemingly out of control." — Ronald T. Kellogg, The Making of the Mind: The Nueroscience of Human Nature

https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/10-atheist-quotes-that-make-you-question-religion?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3

#Religion #Beliefs

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9   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Apr 4, 8:50am  

9) Why socialism ends up either in Economic Disarray and Oligarchy, or a Cult-like Tyranny without exception.
10   Bd6r   2019 Apr 4, 8:51am  

MisterLearnToCode says
9) Why socialism ends up either in Economic Disarray and Oligarchy, or a Cult-like Tyranny without exception.

First in tyranny, then in economic collapse - very universal, true 100% so far.
11   Shaman   2019 Apr 4, 9:07am  

d6rB says
natural disasters creating misery, which has nothing to do with my free will and me doing the right things.


Or, you could think of the world as the sandbox we were given in which to live. Sure there are dangers, and many of these may be mitigated by doing “the right things” as you put. But some may not, or should I say, we either insufficiently prepare for them (Hurricane Katrina e.g.) or don’t yet understand how to mitigate them (old age, cancer). Does the fact that the world is not a padded cell make it evil? Or is it just the playing field? Neither good nor evil, just what is.
12   Bd6r   2019 Apr 4, 9:55am  

Quigley says
Neither good nor evil, just what is.

God then is neither force for good nor evil.
13   Shaman   2019 Apr 4, 10:08am  

d6rB says
God then is neither force for good nor evil.


God is a gentleman. He won’t force himself on us.
14   Bd6r   2019 Apr 4, 10:09am  

Quigley says
God is a gentleman. He won’t force himself on us.

Gentleman is supposed to help those in distress.
15   Blue   2019 Apr 5, 12:01am  

God and religion is all about sugar coating but in reality it extracts money, power from others and molest women and children if no one is around.
16   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 2:55am  

Quigley says
God is a gentleman. He won’t force himself on us.


His followers have absolutely no problem doing that regardless of which god or which country and killing those who refuse to convert - again - applies equally as well to Christians as well as others.
17   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 2:59am  

This is the first of two articles that examine how many of the ideas put forth by the World’s religions -both Eastern and Western — are not only consistent with the simulation hypothesis, but that this new theory may find a way to bridge the ever-widening gap between religion and science. Part I will focus on the Western religions, specifically God and his Angels and the idea of an afterlife, while Part II will focus on the Eastern religions, specifically about the idea of maya, or illusion, karma and reincarnation.

We’ll see how these religious ideas take on a whole new meaning when viewed through the lens of the simulation hypothesis. In fact, this theory may provide a scientific and technological basis for all of these arguments, showing that the unseen worlds described by the world’s religions may be more scientific than we thought!


Does the Matrix show us a scientific model for religions?

More including:

The Matrix, its Religious Overtones and its Central Idea

Video Games, Virtual Reality and the idea of a Simulated World

Western Central Tenet #1: And God Said: Let there Be Light!

Western Central Tenet #2: Angels and the Afterlife in Video Games

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-04/religion-and-simulation-hypothesis-god-ai
18   Shaman   2019 Apr 5, 7:49am  

d6rB says
Gentleman is supposed to help those in distress.


And do you always want help when you’re having a hard time? Does stepping in to “do it for you” help kids learn?
On the other hand, who is to say whether God helps those, or at least some of those, who ask for it?
19   Patrick   2019 Apr 5, 7:52am  

Religion has many profound benefits regardless of the objective truth or falsity of the specific beliefs. The biggest benefit is probably a sense of community, something totally missing from the liberal globalist mindset, which puts the individual above the community at all times.

https://bestlifeonline.com/the-secret-reason-why-religious-people-live-longer/

Ohio State University researchers analyzed the obituaries of over 1,000 Americans across the country and found that, taking into account the sex and marital status of those who died, those who had religious affiliations lived an average of four years longer than those who didn’t.

“Religious affiliation had nearly as strong an effect on longevity as gender does, which is a matter of years of life,” said Laura Wallace, a doctoral student in psychology at The Ohio State University and the lead author of the study.
20   Blue   2019 Apr 5, 9:05am  

The benefits of being an atheist are:
1) Freedom: Living your life without need to defer to someones interpretation of their god's rules.
2) Responsibility: Living your life knowing that you are ultimately responsible for your actions.
3) Meaning: Living a finite life requires you to prioritize the activities in your life.
4) Love: Living a finite life makes you want to leave a positive legacy through your children.
5) Reality: Living your life practically and pragmatically, without need to refer to the supernatural.
6) Harmony: Living life without cognitive dissonance. No need to believe in things that are not there.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110312095753AApZMnO
https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/10-benefits-of-atheism
21   clambo   2019 Apr 5, 9:25am  

Religion is an interesting invention by man. I think it's popular for some reasons mentioned above which maybe I will express more clumsily.

People may fear random events so much that they invent a power to regulate them for us. Religion has created non-existent yet powerful gods to do things to protect us or even help us.

What level of insanity does it take to believe you must 1. capture people 2. bring them to the top of a pyramid 3. cut out their live beating hearts to please a non-existent god to make crops flourish? Religious insanity did this.

The concept of many gods being boiled down to just one god in Christianity and islam is considered an advancement of thought on the subject. How quaint, now there is a god so omnipotent he keeps track of what happens all day long to the population of the earth, thousands of millions of people. The ancient gods had more reasonable tasks; one guy was in charge of weather, another god in charge of the oceans, etc.

Humans like to put someone else "in charge" or in a position of authority. This is a way to delegate responsibility that makes us feel comfortable maybe.

Recall that for thousands of years the only people who had a decent standard of living were 1. royalty 2. priests
The rest were essentially slaves of 1&2 who had to give the fruits of their toil to keep them happy.

I hear females often talk about "karma" in the sense that if they think you did something wrong to someone else, you will be punished somehow later by someone or something. This is the belief in a judge figure who dispenses out justice to right the wrongs of everyday existence.

My problem with some religions is it asks you to believe complete nonsense depending on which flavor you choose; I have met people who actually do not believe evolution happened, that dinosaurs are an invention or maybe "dragons" and that we have descended from Adam and Eve.

Quaint but dangerous beliefs sometimes cause more human suffering; for many years contraception has been forbidden by the catholic church, so the poorest people had more children. I have spoken to some very poor in Mexico and they may say that "god will provide for us somehow" and I feel sorry for them.

LIke Blue above, I don't submit to the morality foisted upon me by others. I often reflect on this myself; I wish I had been kinder in this situation or that, or I wish I had helped this person more or etc. but I don't feel the need to confess this or to call it a sin.

We all instinctively wish there were a higher authority to right wrongs against us somehow, or to save us from random natural events. Being religious is a comfort to many who like to feel there is really some protector "up there watching over us".

One funny example was my friend went to visit relatives on the North Shore of Hawaii; she told me many surfers attend church because they want to be protected and not drown if things go wrong on the huge waves. I said "doesn't god tell them to stop putting their lives in danger so he doesn't have to 'save them'?"
22   Bd6r   2019 Apr 5, 10:11am  

Quigley says
And do you always want help when you’re having a hard time?

No. If not helping me would make me a better/stronger person, I should not be "helped". However, I am sure that tens of thousands dying in natural disasters do not become better people. Same for ones killed in concentration camps etc.
23   Ceffer   2019 Apr 5, 10:57am  

Who cares as long as God is on your side, you speak for him (XER, XIT), and he (XER, XIT) allows you to kill the fuck out of anybody you please.
24   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 11:49am  

Ceffer says
Who cares as long as God is on your side


Since "God" is on everyone's side in wars - it shows you what a sense of humor he/she/it has...
25   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 11:55am  

Patrick says
The biggest benefit is probably a sense of community, something totally missing from the liberal globalist mindset, which puts the individual above the community at all times.


Religion is not required to get that sense of "community" when a group of people are abused, controlled, ethnically cleansed, harassed, systematically fucked over etc. by another group for decades and generations.
26   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 11:56am  

Blue says
The benefits of being an atheist are:


Not being hounded to give up 10% (tithe) for the good of the church and God.
27   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 11:57am  

Who is to say God is male? Why can't God be an "it" like in comment 17 or for that matter both male and female ?
28   EBGuy   2019 Apr 5, 12:21pm  

Kakistocracy says
Religion is not required to get that sense of "community" when a group of people are abused, controlled, ethnically cleansed, harassed, systematically fucked over etc. by another group for decades and generations.

It is required to transcend family and clan boundaries. That's why it's such a powerful evolutionary force. It allows you to organize goups of disparate people & tribes. Otherwise, you're left in a state of perpetual tribal warfare.
29   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 12:28pm  

EBGuy says
Otherwise, you're left in a state of perpetual tribal warfare.


Which is pretty much the current state of affairs both in the U.S. and many other countries and there is no shortage of religion either - it actually helps divide people further while.organizing groups of disparate people & tribes into separate and unequal fiefdoms of hate against anyone that is not them.
30   anonymous   2019 Apr 5, 12:29pm  

EBGuy says
That's why it's such a powerful evolutionary force


That would be science where you can not just make up shit as you go along
31   EBGuy   2019 Apr 5, 1:03pm  

And yet, we're evolved for the storyverse. Have you listened to Sam Harris try to describe a soccer match?
32   Shaman   2019 Apr 5, 1:05pm  

Kakistocracy says
EBGuy says
That's why it's such a powerful evolutionary force


That would be science where you can not just make up shit as you go along


Which would mean that trannies hate science because it proves they are mental.
33   Bd6r   2019 Apr 5, 1:07pm  

EBGuy says
It is required to transcend family and clan boundaries.

Pax Romana and now US are not based on religion. Neither is most of Europe
34   EBGuy   2019 Apr 5, 1:28pm  

d6rB says
Pax Romana and now US are not based on religion. Neither is most of Europe

Don't be so sure about that...
As an agnostic in terms of his religious commitments, in this excerpt Tom Holland nevertheless describes the way that the birth of Christianity has shaped much of what we value in Western society in terms of human rights, culture and rule of law.
www.youtube.com/embed/AIJ9gK47Ogw
35   EBGuy   2019 Apr 7, 10:56pm  

Kakistocracy says
Which is pretty much the current state of affairs both in the U.S.

Take a deep breath my friend. The United States isn't in a state of perpetual tribal warfare. According to the ADL, we had only 50 extremist killings in a country of 327 million people... and some of those killings were extremists murdering their own children or relatives -- not members of a tribal outgroup.
36   komputodo   2019 Apr 7, 11:19pm  

Quigley says
Anyone else want to add to the list of things Kaki won’t ever question?

Is it possible that he has a severe case of TDS?
37   Blue   2019 Apr 8, 12:08am  

No one can bring Atheist back to barn. But can make them pretended believer with discrimination etc.
In US about 26% are out of barn, this number is about 40% for young and its growing. This will make a great country. A day will come for believer of old, existing or brand new god of any type, to be dragged onto mental facility.
38   anonymous   2019 Apr 8, 2:09am  

EBGuy says
Take a deep breath my friend. The United States isn't in a state of perpetual tribal warfare


Au contraire - no need for killing when you have "cold wars" of political tribal warfare 24 x 7 and election campaigning that never ends.

Add in the unresolved problems (cold wars) from the past decades of race, sexuality, gender, etc.

The country is no more at harmony now, then when all the winds of discontent were blamed on the previous administration.

Bringing segments of the population of the country together on anger and hate seems to be the objective as opposed to bringing the greater population together on things for the good of society in general.

This would seem to be directly related to a lack of leadership - from any one person or other assemblage of people in any political or religious affiliation(s).
40   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2019 Apr 8, 5:06am  

This is all so silly. The Democrats and the left are busy building a new religion around ideals where government replaces God.

Amazingly, supported by nearly all the ardent atheists!
41   Reality   2019 Apr 8, 6:05am  

Blue says
A day will come for believer of old, existing or brand new god of any type, to be dragged onto mental facility.


LOL! That too has happened previously: the guillotine was invented to speed up the chopping of heads belonging to Catholic priests and nuns, but it didn't take long before the machine started working on the necks of the revolutionaries. The French Revolution was officially atheistic, but it took very little time before the atheistic leaders realized that they needed religion to run the society (as neighbors started denouncing neighbors to death in hopes of looting the victim families): first the Church of Reason, then the Church of Supreme-Being (Robespire himself), with the Church of Supreme-Being chopping off the heads of the leaders of the Church of Reason (his former friends) quickly followed by the head of the Church of Supreme-Being being severed on the guillotine.

When a previously predominant traditional religion dies in a society/culture, what happens is crisis of civilization, usually characterized by high crime rate, personality cult and chaos, until the next predominant religious tradition can be established (of course, religious institutions/establishment become corrupt over a much longer time period too, and eventually give rise to the loss of faith and crisis of civilization, so the cycles repeat). The fundamental reason is that earthly bureaucrats can not run a society efficiently without the help of religion: in a city like Detroit and Chicago, only 15% of murder cases are solved; so without some sort of god(s)/religion giving people an incentive (rational or not) to supervise themselves, it's quite impossible to maintain an orderly society after the entire society realizes that they can get away with murder 85% of the time.

Richard Dawkins famously said that religion is like a mental virus for a society; IMHO, a better analogy is that religion to a society is like Mitocondria to a cell: Mitocondria has its own DNA distinct from that of the cell's, so likely the result of an invasion/implantation at some point in the distant past (just like a virus), yet a high functioning cell can not survive without Mitocondria.
42   marcus   2019 Apr 8, 6:26am  

I questioned religion a lot while I was a child (teen actually). Those type of quotes(OP above) definitely impacted my thinking about 45 years ago. I was a fan of Bertrand Russel.

I'm not religious now, and I know it's counter intuitive, but I think religion going away will continue to coincide with the downfall of civilization.

EBGuy says
As an agnostic in terms of his religious commitments, in this excerpt Tom Holland nevertheless describes the way that the birth of Christianity has shaped much of what we value in Western society in terms of human rights, culture and rule of law.


Yep.
43   EBGuy   2019 Apr 8, 1:39pm  

Blue says
No one can bring Atheist back to barn.

Perhaps you didn't get the memo...
www.youtube.com/embed/iBSOTY1rTtg
44   Shaman   2019 Apr 8, 2:07pm  

EBGuy says
Perhaps you didn't get the memo...


Exactly, as JP says: “Life is pain, and pain without meaning is unendurable.” Therefore we require meaning to make life worth living, and make it more than just mere meaning, to make it an act of heroism. Otherwise we slide into nihilism and despair, with all the inevitable addictions to our coping drugs of choice.

This truth resounds deeply within people who think, and thinkers tend towards the siren song of atheism more than anyone.
46   Bd6r   2019 Apr 8, 7:23pm  

EBGuy says
Christianity has shaped much of what we value in Western society in terms of human rights, culture and rule of law.

Law is so-called Roman law in most Europe (and LA in USA). Culture - Christians appropriated Pagan holidays (Christmas etc). Human rights - that's Enlightenment.
I do not deny that Christian faith has had a lot of influence, but it is just one of many layers that forms European and American civilizations.
47   Y   2019 Apr 9, 7:02am  

All those benefits are also available to those believing in a godlike force that's yet to be defined by man.
Blue says
The benefits of being an atheist are:
48   HeadSet   2019 Apr 9, 1:33pm  

One very important attribute of Christianity which is usually overlooked by leftists is that Christians are "innoculated" against Islam.

Actually, that "inoculation" is from modern society, science, and medicine. The Christianity we have in the USA is very lightweight, very few believe traditional Christian points that God will take care of you like how does the Lilies of the Field, or that faith will heal a snake wound. Lightweight Christians would rather find jobs and earn money rather than wait for a Divinity to provide, and will see a doctor when sick. Lightweight Christianity is acceptable to people who who believe in Jesus "just in case," but will not go as far as to abstain from sex before marriage or give all their money to the poor. Churches in the USA are more like social clubs than cults.

The deep faithful, those that seem to have a genetic predisposition toward worship, are susceptible to change from Christianity into devout Muslims, Devil Worshipers, Marxists, or other cults.

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