ATHEIST WHO HAS SEEN GOD

I speak as an atheist who has seen God.
Why is the knowledge of good and evil sinful and worthy of death? If you can answer such a riddle, you too may see the divine Truth.

Here are a few hints to contemplate:

God is the alpha and omega. The beginning and the end.

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed only changed from.

God is eternal.

Given a long enough timeline all things that can happen, will happen.

We do not know what happened prior to the big bang, but that it all came from nothing sounds silly, maybe.

For change to exist, something must have come before as it causes, therefore, change has been rolling around eternally.

The holy spirit is in all things.

Good and evil are subjective. Knowledge of the distinctions of good and evil is the cause for its creation, a rock or a tree has no sense of good nor bad. As such it does not suffer nor die, only does it change in form.

We are all gods children and all that is is in his plan.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. We eat, we shit, we shed skin hair and nails. We die and our bodies break apart. Born of the act of creation, the big bang, born of burning hydrogen. Born of trees and of rock, once we were stars and no doubt we will be again.

Butterfly effect. Chemicals react. All is one. Those who see themselves in God and God in all things is one who knows the truth.

Contemplate, meditate and pray on these thoughts, live a life that feels as close as you can get to being worthy of having lived, seek to grow in the good and the wise constantly. Question yourselves and all else, find the truth :)

Author: Thomas Banjo Bell

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THINKING ABOUT RELIGIONS

Atheism and existential angst and depression.
I was certainly much happier years ago when I believed in theism/polytheism. I was indoctrinated as a child to believe that our world and our history of incredible violence, tyranny, injustice, warfare, genocide and human suffering was created by a loving God who was good and that there was a great battle between good and evil going on, and that eventually, over time, good would triumph over evil, but as I grew older it seemed to me that religious evil was part of the problem of our world and that the world's most profitable and popular gods were themselves definitions of evil.

I almost never suffered from depression when I was atheist, but unfortunately, I now suffer from an almost constant depression which I have to almost constantly fight, though, in terms of my personal life, I have very little to be unhappy about, I am semi-retired and I live a relatively comfortable life and I share my life with someone whom I love very much.

I seem to spend much of my time on the Internet discussing political and religious evil and it does not give me any sense of happiness; perhaps a sense of purpose, but certainly not happiness; I find the exercise of discussing political and religious evil to be extremely depressing. Sometimes I often wish I could be an optimistic theist again, but I simply cannot; human reason forbids me.

The history of our world is that of tyranny, violence, slavery, injustice, warfare, genocide, religious, political and economic evil and incredible human suffering. I live in a quiet village which is much like the Hobbit world, and the suffering of the world comes to me only from news reports. It scars me; it scars my mind and I exist in a state of depression, existential angst and mental suffering which I find myself trying to constantly fight and it is a battle I am losing. Sometimes I take a week off the Internet where I post rarely and just drink a lot of alcohol and get stoned, but when I come down from that the angst returns once again.

All is full of war and human suffering.

Author: Martin Black

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Admin's Note: I'm thinking that you have to find the energy or a reason for living happily. But the reason isn't like a divine duty. This is just life, we can try be satisfied and, enjoy the colors of life. I'm believing to god, but this god isn't like a white beared man watching us from the sky and holding a magic staff. I believe that the universe is God. Because universe doing everything, like giving a life and, collecting the dead parts to build something new from them. This is just my belief (Pandeism).
But if you aren't believe something, this is cannot be a reason for feeling bad or something. Just live.

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AN IMMATERIAL GOD THAT EXISTS OUTSIDE OF NATURE

This is Baron D'Holbach's refutation of Samuel Clarke's assertion in an immaterial God that exists outside of nature. While I don't have the original assertion by Clarke, I think Holdbach's responses can be read without them. Thoughts on these arguments?

Thus, to resume the answers which have been given to Dr. Clarke, we shall say:

1) We can conceive that matter has existed from all eternity, seeing that we cannot conceive it to have been capable of beginning.

2) That matter is independent, seeing there is nothing exterior to itself; that it is immutable, seeing it cannot change its nature, although it is unceasingly changing its form and its combinations.

3) That matter is self-existent, since not being able to conceive it can be annihilated, we cannot possibly conceive it can have commenced existing.

4) That we do not know the essence, or the true nature of matter, although we have a knowledge of some of its properties; of some of its qualities: according to the mode in which they act upon us.

5) That matter not having had a beginning will never have an end, although its numerous combinations, its various forms, have necessarily a commencement and a period.

6) That is all that exists, or everything our mind can conceive is matter, this matter is infinite; that is to say, cannot be limited by anything; that it is omnipresent, seeing there is no place exterior to itself; indeed, if there was a place exterior to it, that would be a vacuum.

7) That nature is unique, although its elements or its parts may be varied to infinity, induced with properties extremely opposite; with qualities essentially different.

8) That matter, arranged, modified, and combined in a certain mode, produces in some beings what we call intelligence, which is one of its modes of being, not one of its essential properties.

9) That matter is not a free agent, since it cannot act otherwise than it does, in virtue of 'the laws of its nature, or of its existence ; that consequently, heavy bodies must necessarily fall; light bodies by the same necessity rise; fire must burn; man must experience good and evil, according to the quality of the beings whose action he experiences.

10) That the power or the energy of matter has no other bounds than those which are prescribed by its own existence.

11) That wisdom, justice, goodness, etc. are qualities peculiar to matter combined and modified, as it is found in some beings of the human species; that the idea of perfection is an abstract, negative, metaphysical idea, or mode of considering objects, which supposes nothing real to be exterior to itself.

12) That matter is the principle of motion, which it contains within itself: since matter alone is capable of either giving or receiving motion:

This is what cannot be conceived of immateriality or simple beings destitute of parts, devoid of extent, without mass, having no ponderosity, which consequently cannot either move itself or other.

Author: Mike Barnhouse

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CLOSER TO DEISM THAN ATHEISM

While Baron D'Holbach is normally considered a staunch advocate of atheism, I've found a few passages in The System of Nature which suggest he might have had a belief closer to Deism than atheism. The following passage certainly caught my eye:

"Of whatever nature this great Cause of causes may be, it is evident to the slightest reflection that he has been sedulous to conceal himself from our view; that he has rendered it impossible for us to have the least- acquaintance with him, except through the medium of nature, which he has unquestionably rendered competent to everything. This is the rich banquet spread before man; he is invited to partake, with a welcome he has no right to dispute; to enjoy that which must make him most acceptable; to be happy himself is to make others happy; to make others happy is to be virtuous, to be virtuous he must revere truth. To know what truth is, he must examine with caution, scrutinize with severity, every opinion he adopts.
This granted, is it at all consistent with the majesty of the Divinity, is it not insulting to such a being to clothe him with our wayward passions, to ascribe to him designs similar to our narrow view of things; to give him our filthy desires; to suppose' he can be guided by our finite conceptions: to bring him on a level with frail humanity, by investing him with our qualities, however much we may exaggerate them; to indulge an opinion that he can either act or think as we do; to imagine he can in any manner resemble such a feeble play-thing, as is the greatest, the most distinguished man? No! it is to degrade him in the eye of reason; to violate every regard for truth, to set moral decency at defiance; to fall back into the depth of Cimmerian darkness. Let man, therefore, sit down cheerfully, to the feast; let him contentedly partake of what he finds; but let him not worry the Divinity with his useless prayers, with his shallow-sighted requests, to solicit at his hands that which, if granted, would in all probability be the most injurious for himself: these supplications are, in fact, at once to say, that with our limited experience, with our slender knowledge, we better understand what is suitable to our condition, what is convenient to our welfare, than the mighty Cause of all causes who has left us in the hands of nature: it is to be presumptuous in the highest degree of presumption; it is impiously to endeavour to lift up a veil which it is evidently forbidden man to touch; that even his most strenuous efforts attempt in vain."

That, to me, sounds like a man that believes in a Deistic God that he knows he could never have any true "knowledge" of, and accepts his limitations.

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