Anne Nicole Smith-DOA.

**Bethany** · 2007-02-09 17:47

Roranora, I applaud you on your well written post. Have you ever read "This I believe", by Jay Allison & Dan Gediman? It's a collection of essays which shows people insight into beliefs different from their own. I have this book and one of my favorites from it is this:

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

Penn Jillette's words are as close to my own views as I can get without writing them myself.

"The Jews, the Muslims and the Christians, They've all got it wrong. The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain."

- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri, 10th century Syrian poet

**Fhqwghads** · 2007-02-09 17:59

Wow, I like that a lot. I did leave out in my tangent back there the fact that just because someone chooses to not believe in god/religion doesn't mean it's a great excuse to be a complete asshole devoid of remorse for any actions he/she may do. I still adhere to the "do unto others" mantra. The bible does have some decent ideas about how to be responsible and interact with your fellow members of mankind. There's just a lot of other useless junk in there that I completely disagree with. Like that author stated, I'm well adjusted, happy, and enjoy every moment of my life (well, most every moment.) Not believing in a god doesn't mean the light in your life is snuffed out.

**Mysterio** · 2007-02-09 18:08

I believe in Raptor Jesus.

He's pretty cool.

**Roranora** · 2007-02-09 18:32

Well now I can no longer open my post with the word "wow" too. >.> At any rate, to answer your question, Bethany, no I have not read that. However, after reading that essay, or perhaps just a cropped section of what was the essay, I like it a lot as well, and wow is a good description of it. Thank you for that; I enjoyed it. :D

I really liked..

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

..because of the emphasis placed on it being the route to take in order to be opened to be proven wrong, and being fine with it. The 3rd-to-last sentence really sounds harsh, but it really is a true assessment of reading between the lines of a given religious response.

And..

No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

..definately deserves an echo or two.. or a billion.

That random fact thread that was around here awhile ago, (I know, take some of them with a grain of salt) said something like.. "In the last 3500 years there have been approximately 230 years of peace in the civilized world." I think. (By all means, correct me if I'm way off.. these are just thoughts that arised from the previous quote) That's probably about the time we were intelligent enough to fear our own death and the first religions surfaced, I'd guess. So.. a 93.4%-ish chance of war in the post-religion age.. is kinda scary, and I'd guess most of those conflicts had, in some form, a belief fueling them. I know the last 4 years, at the very least, are applicable.

**BRP** · 2007-02-09 19:18

ITT bandwagon atheists don't pull their heads out of their asses.

**Stilgar** · 2007-02-09 19:23

Originally Posted by BRP

ITT bandwagon atheists don't pull their heads out of their asses.

Glad I'm a DeVry atheist!

**Kuya** · 2007-02-09 19:23

lol at the people believing humanity wouldn't find something else to fight about if religion did not exist.

If you can even imagine nobody believing in something.

**Beckwin** · 2007-02-09 19:33

Oh, people would still fight for many of the reasons they do now: greed, pride, lust for power, etc. They just wouldn't have an easy, go-to bullshit facade for it all, which would be kind of refreshing and would in all likelihood could've diluted a lot of war-hawking in our history.

"We're fighting for God and all that is holy!"

"We're fighting because I need more land/gold/slaves!"

Which is an easier sell?

**BRP** · 2007-02-09 19:34

Originally Posted by Beckwin

Oh, people would still fight for many of the reasons they do now: greed, pride, lust for power, etc. They just wouldn't have an easy, go-to bullshit facade for it all, which would be kind of refreshing and would in all likelihood could've diluted a lot of war-hawking in our history.

"We're fighting for God and all that is holy!"

"We're fighting because I need more land/gold/slaves!"

Which is an easier sell?