If atheists dismiss claims about God, god and deities and the only things that are worthy of thought and discussion are logic, proof, evidence and sound reasoning then what is there to believe in? You see I'm not very smart I won't be able to compete in debates and arguments about any subject, usually what I do is find the smartest person in the debate and totally agree with them.

That is to say if I take an atheists mindset and demand evidence in every single aspect of my life I won't be able to get off the ground.

I understand that atheism is only concerned with the disbelief in God, what I'm really attacking is the mindset, the analytically mind, to analysis statments, gathering up all the data before proceeding, etc... Then from my viewpoint I can't take a single step unless I know what my life is about, what is it that I should be doing, and how do I figure out what action to take.

Atheists don't claim that logic & evidence are the only things worthy of thinking/thinking about. Those things are just considered essential for the acquisition of knowledge. But we're all very happy to think and talk about a wide variety of subjects, including art, literature, music, sports, food, wine, shopping etc. Similarly, there are lots of things atheists believe in, it's just that those things are (ideally) believed in proportionately to the evidence for them.


I don't see why we'd need to work out the meaning of life just to be able to decide what to have for breakfast (for example), but clearly you do already think about what you should be doing, how to work out what action to take etc. If this not informed by evidence, experience, logic etc on what basis DO you choose what to eat in the morning?

Are you looking for someone to tell you what to do?

Q. If atheism is true and logic and reason only matter what is there to believe in?

A. Logic and reason.

Btw, being smart doesn't mean being right. It would be a shame if anyone turned to some god or other because coping with life is too hard without that, oh wait... that's what happens all the time isn't it.

If someone is to through a ball at me I don't stop to measure the distance, calculate the weight of the ball, wind reistance etc... I simply catch the ball and in the same way I don't really think of what I should eat for breakfast I just eat whatever it is I can afford and I like the taste of. Eating breakfast ain't so much of a problem.

But living in a society with rules, laws I had no say in, working in a job I hate because said society requires me to get a job for money, money I have no use for (other than food/shelter), because my body craves to be maintained and nourished and I need money for the food. To acquire a place of residence so that one can live at a comfortable level. I have little power or control over these things. It is this awful mess that I turn to Atheists and say "psstt hey you seeing this garbage? how do you do this utter crap? but more important than how, is why the hell would you?" usually the only thing a smart atheist can say is "we are only concerned with issues with god - blinkers on la la la la can't hear" and I'm like "who gives a **** about god, I would like to know how to deal with real life problems, and you seem smart enough, and you have a good moral code"

I wouldn't say life was hard, more like boring. Life is like watchng paint dry. I mean I can do it, but you know.....why its boring.

I wouldn't need to if I didn't have to deal with people. It is because I have to deal with people. Society restricts me in some aspects, conform under the weight of peer pressure there isn't much I can do about that. So I say fine, I will go along with society, but the onus is on society (since it has taken some of my freedoms) to tell me what to do.

Society DOES tell you what to do , youve listed it all in your OP. Get married, get a job etc

Catching a ball is a bit of an odd example, as I stated in the first paragraph (which you ignored) that atheists tend to assert that knowledge requires logic/evidence. But for the breakfast example, you still had to use a form of logic (math) in order to know what you could afford, and evidence (in a loose sense) about what sort of foods you like to eat. I think the problem here is that you have a very narrow idea of what constitutes evidence and logic and are creating a strawman version of an atheist-skeptic.

This seems pretty unrelated to the wording of the OP, but I suspect it's the heart of your question. Unfortunately I don't have an answer that will satisfy you other than I don't find life boring. I really rather enjoy it. Regardless, I don't see how a false belief would improve the reality of the situation. If palliatives are what you require to get through life without God then I guess you could look into Prozac.

I am the end product of future generations to come unable to think for myself because I have been totally brainwashed not by religion but by society.

Why are you assuming that I'm looking for a false belief? what I am concerned about is how do I improve the reality of the situation? its like I'm the only person to see how ****ed up life is, everyone else seems to be oblivious.

I'm not. By starting your OP "if atheism is true" you imply the question of whether theism is a false belief. You also seem (at least for sake of argument) to be granting that premise (i.e. if atheism is true, does such and such follow). So my point here is that if atheism is true, then theism doesn't seem to help matters. By contrast, if theism is true then any crappiness in the mortal life may be made up for in the afterlife. But what one believes doesn't seem to have much bearing on the reality of the situation.

I understand that you feel like is bad and you want to improve it, but what has atheism got to do with that? It might help if you pick one example of something that makes life boring/****ed-up....

I'm using the word if, as in if athesim is true (if and it is true) and logic and reason are the only things that matter then what is there to believe?

So I'm saying athesim is true but that doesn't seem to help matters because I get bogged down into detail and I'm unable to calculate all the variables into making a decision.

When I say athesim I'm attacking the mindset, the analytically mind, to analysis statments, gathering up all the data before proceeding.

Ok

This has no direct relationship with atheism, although some atheists might think this way.

whatever makes it easyist to make the decisions you need to make for everyday living.

Um! A wiser approach might be to just admit you don't understand. The smartest person is often wrong, and you were not going to win anyway.

That is not an atheist mindset, I do not believe there is an (unique) atheist mind set. Personally I just observe that theistic beliefs are not based on any evidence so are effectively fantasy. Other atheists have lots of other reasons for not 'believing in god' whatever that means. A common really dumb reason to be an atheists is 'because of all the evil in the world, there could not be a god'.

This sounds more like the scientific mindset. Nothing to do atheism, although a lot of scientist are atheists. A lot are theists too. So if you are submitting a scientific paper to be peer reviewed then you might have to do something like this irrespective as to whether you are atheist or theists or other.

This has nothing to do with atheism. Even scientists don’t do this. You seem to be totally confused by a strawman of your own making.

All science is doing is looking the best, or most successful way to solve problems, so those with a scientific bent will likely be better at problem solving.

underlined has nothing to do with atheism.

underlined has nothing to do with atheism.

In other words:

"Man cannot live by bread alone."

This is actually an important revelation. Just the other day the head of the CDC stated that antibiotics were dead. We saw our first publicized MERSA outbreak outside of a hospital. It reminded me of a term paper I wrote on technological determinism years ago. The basic idea being that our technologies that fix current problems ultimately create new problems that we need new technologies to fix, and sooner or later we are trapped in a web of technology. And it becomes unclear if "progress" is really being made at all.

You can make endless analogies like this, really, across the sciences, from the pharma field to the social sciences.

Man cannot live by bread alone. All this really means is that man cannot live without a revelation. We've seen them try to -- in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, etc.. We all know the results. The template of man calls for a revelation. Man needs it.

You will constantly see atheists here say that the meaning of life doesn't need to be worked out in order to enjoy life. They will say that it doesn't matter if our lives and our choices have some eternal significance, and then look strangely at you. But I suspect that they have to repeat that enough times that that must at least suspect that they could be wrong about that charge. I think they are. I think that they suspect that they are. And I think that's okay.

You can keep telling a thirsty man that he doesn't need water, and that all he has to do is imagine water, and everything will be better. I don't know how long that will work. It hasn't worked in the past. But dammit if they don't keep trying.

Basically just LOL to this entire post, but specifically, your logic never seems to extend beyond "This didn't work for me, therefore no one can live this way." And throwing in the old canard of "zomg stalin!!" is just mwahhh!

+1. I think this is a very good reply, probably a fair bit better than the OP deserved - which makes it laudable to boot.

It becomes clear that progress is never really made at all.

Pfft. Robin may repeatedly profess ignorance and play down his own intellect, but he's ultimately the only contributor to this site who has a clue, IMO. You guys can quibble over all the minutiae that you'd like, but if you don't see the point that any way of life is just as logically indefensible as any other, then I don't much see what wisdom you've attained.

And perhaps you will claim that you didn't say that you don't see this point. Well, if you truly appreciate the arbitrariness of it all, then it should haunt you on a daily basis, a momentary basis. Outside of Robin (and me), no one here (this going for regular contributors on both RGT and SMP) demonstrates any evidence of being particularly perturbed by moral/existential nihilism. Those who might occasionally acknowledge it seem quite content to continue living as before...which is something that defies comprehension for me. IDK, maybe it's cowardice more than anything else. Or maybe the genetic/physiological differences that exist between "those who are truly bothered by moral and existential nihilism" and "those who claim not to be bothered by either" simply render members of the opposite camp unfathomable to the other side. The speculation could continue, but I'll leave it at that, because...what's the point, right

Don't see that I have disagreed with this. Although I am not convinced it is a particularly healthy viewpoint to have, or that it is particularly related to the OP.

Why? Lot of other stuff to get involved with.

Why get all worked up about what you cannot change?

Yes. Lots of stuff confuses me as well. Women for instance completely perplex me.

Maybe some people prefer to think about nice stuff, because it makes them feel nicer?

cowardice seems to be what ath. believe in

Stuff beyond your five senses? That people are simply really smart monkeys?

You could always use logic and reason to assist in not creating silly strawman arguments OP, that might help.