Welcome aboard - I'm kind of new myself

That is a very good point - picture your world without your god. What you gain is whatever your god takes away from you now. For example some theists believe they should pray regularly, that time is taken from them by their faith. From an athesists point of view, those moments are precious, time is limited and better spent doing something useful.

Other examples might be predjudices caused by your faith - some theists are homophobic, predjudice against followers of other faiths, misogynistic regarding women, etc. If your god suggests these are correct beliefs, then a lack of said god releases a person from these wasteful and damaging beliefs.

That is an interesing question.  What are you missing out by believing in God.  I think this question is simple, you are missing out on reality. But I guess it all depends on what you want out of life.  You see, most atheists were once believers and as soon as they embraced rationality, they realized the flaws associated with their belief system.  Sometimes faith will blind you from rational thought, and in doing so prevents you from pursuing a life that may, in fact, be more frutiful to you.  Also, indirectly, your faith may in fact affect others negatively.  As we have seen with the faithful of this country taking over our political system and in turn start a crusade.  The same can be said about muslims and jews who are killing each other in the name of each respetive god.  Of course, there are those moderates who do not agree wtih killing, but what they don't realize is their complicity.  They are as responsible as the fundamentalists for teh acts committed in the name of god, because their ideas and Political correctness allows for the fundamentalsists to flourish.  So what are you missing out on? I think that is a question that begs many others.  More improtantly I think, you have to ask the question, am I helping society through my belief in god?  Do the decisions you make in life based on your faith have an impact that benefit society?  

Hi Kemono,

Thank You so much for the welcome! Your post was very thought provoking. I did some reflecting and think my life would be much different without my God. Thinking of my life without God makes me quite sad to be honest. Without God I would not be as centered as I am in my life. My focus would become lost and I could very well lose the strength that I have found. When I pray each day it gives me strength and helps me find the strength within myself and helps me through rough times. Furthermore, my faith in God (yes, I said faith, that word many don't like) helps me reconize the beauty in this world. My beliefs (which are being shaped all the time) are helping me become the person I want to be.

As I see it I gain much from my faith.

Now I know that without God in my life I would still be a moral and loving person. I would still help others and give charity but, I would lose much of my outlook on life.

 I will respond to you all in seperate posts I hope you do not mind, I am doing this because my post would be huge if I didn't

Hi Andyy,

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I will try to tell you more of what I believe, I hope my explanation is not too long or boring for you all.

I am Jewish. I believe in the Jewish God. (I know by now everyone reading this is probably shaking their heads ready to pounce and attack my views, please hold on a bit and read the rest of this post first). I believe that God brought the Jews out of Eygpt and gave us his torah through Moses. Now please note that I do not agree with everything in the Torah and Talmud. and I do not take those works literally. I know that all religions are effected by the culture of the time period. Also I believe that humans cannot fully grasp all the ideas being presented to them from God. Afterall it was God who said "My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways". So they did the best they could with their knowledge and the context of their culture during those times.

 

Hi Left of Larry,

 

Thanks for reading my post and giving such a thought out response.

You say that I am missing out on reality. I do not believe this is true afterall we live in reality. You may consider me irrational for my beliefs and thats ok, I won't battle you on that. There are some things in your post I would really like to respond to. First I don't see how my faith negatively effects others. I do not shove my beliefs down others throats. I do the opposite actually I normally ask them about what they believe. I also do not use my faith to judge others. As I said in an earlier posting, who am I to judge? I cannot claim that I know the only truth out there, all I know is what is true for me.

To briefly address your comment about people killing eachother in the name of their gods. Yes, you are right people do kill in the name of their faiths all the time. But people kill for other reasons as well. No one can claim that the only reason people kill is because of religion. In fact as you probably already know their are religions who have a clean record as far as that goes. I have yet to hear about a Buddhist going off and killing someone in the name of their belief.

Now about moderates and their complicity. You can call me a moderate by your definition. But, I do not consider myself responsible for religious radicals. Infact I speak out against what they do. It is not fair to blame all for the actions of few. I would never think of holding you responsible for the actions of a radical Athiest.

Now for your last two questions. I believe that my faith aids me in helping society and Yes, my faith based decisions benefit society. However like with most, I help soceity in small ways.

I hope I did not miss any of your points, if so please let me know. and I hope I did not veer too much off topic.

 

how does one act like an Athiest???

Hi CreativeChic

 I cannot speak for anyone but myself but what I gain from non-belief is complete mental freedom. I have no taboos, no unaskable questions, no unthinkable thoughts. I can honestly consider any opinion without the fear of eternal damnation for it.

I also have more self esteem. Beleivers give god credit that they themselves (and often their friends and family) deserve. My achievements are my own. My own inteligence solved problems, god did not provide my answers. My creativity came up with great ideas, god did not inspire me. My own courage kept me from giving up when facing difficulty, god did not hold my hand - when I needed it my friends did.

wavefreak

I'm not saying that religion is the only thing that limits intellectual freedom. Political ideologies also do that and I oppose them as much as I do organised religion. I see people giving up their intelectual freedom for many things but god is a big one.

I have only been reading your posts for a little while but you don't seem to be a victim of organised religion (your signature alone shows you have had trouble with those who follow the church).

I think you and me have a lot in common. I'm going to say something here that may lead to me earning a theist tag and being banned from the atheist-only board. I believe in god. I don't think there is logical or scientific evidence for god so I will always take the atheist side in an argument but I feel there is something more and some benevolent force (I'll call it god) guiding my life.

I can't help it my logical side knows there is nothing more than this life and no greater force running the show. My other side (maybe call it emotional, or instictive or whatever) knows that there is something more and some reason. Neither side can beat the other as they are arguing with a different set of rules. I accept the duality and simply choose to only show one side so as to have some consistency of behavior. (note in this paragraph I'm not implying you think like this, just trying to explain my personal 'faith' )

I have no problem with other people's individual faith. It's religion I have a problem with. both sides of me think that no religion is right about the nature of whatever it is out there. Partly because their stories dont make sense (A perfect god who is so insecure that he needs to be worshiped) but mostly because it's clear to me that if god does exist he has not revealed enough concrete about his nature for anyone to have the level of certainty and detail that religions claim to have.

Note to evangelists: please do not use this as evidence for your "There's no such thing as an atheist" argument. I am speaking only for myself and have usually identified as an agnostic (god is unknown and unknowable) anyway.