On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:40:57 -0700, Linda Lee wrote:
> [...]
> Since fear of God (and God's punishment) is the reason many atheists
> reject God, yes, a night spent experiencing the supernatural would
> probably be a very terrifying night for such people.
You are greatly ignornant on the subject of atheism. Fear of God's
punishment could be a reason for rejecting God, but rejecting God does
not equate to disbelieving in God. In fact, one logically must *not* be
an atheist in order to believe in God enough to fear him.
On the other hand, rejection of God can lead, over time, to ignoring God,
which can become a sort of atheism by default.
On the third hand, fear of God's punishment is an extremely rare reason
for rejecting God. At least, I have never heard of it happening. A much
more common reason for rejecting God is hatred of God for what he has
done. Usually this happens when people who are raised to believe that
God is Good have bad things happen to them, despite their sincere
prayers. The God they were promised was demostrably not there. Of
course, the problem is more with the promises than with God, but it's not
like "God is good" is a fringe belief.
Getting back to atheism, there are three main reasons (that I know of)
why people choose it. The first is similar to the above reason for
rejecting God, except more impersonal. The theists say that a God has
certain qualities which people can observe, those qualities are not
observed, ergo God does not exist.
The second is probably the most common. Quite simply, there is no reason
philosophically to expect a god. Yes, there are plenty of so-called
proofs of God, but they were debunked centuries ago. Today, they are
only used by the faithless to try to convince themselves.
The third reason is the main reason why I became an athiest: the theists
showed me, by their words and actions, that atheism was the morally
superior position. Consider, for example, Nomen's quote: "I truly
believe someone has to be insane not to believe in God the Creator ..."
I simply do not want to be around someone filled with as much bigotry as
he is.
Note that I am not saying that these are good reasons, nor am I trying to
convince anyone. I simply offer these observations in hopes that they
help you understand atheists better.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
|
