Quote:
Originally Posted by LucidDream
So a a manual for creating a belief system that worships the aspect of God that is nothingness rather than the aspect that is everythingness. Sounds like a religion based on identification with nothing that has become so self absorbed in nothing that it can't identify with it's own identifications and belief systems. If you're really an atheist why would you need a manual to create belief structures telling you so? Isn't lack of experiential awareness of God the real and only basis an atheist should use to form such an opinion? Also why would you need to create other atheists, beyond your own lack of faith and insecurity in your current belief system that you need others to confirm it's relevance to you? It seems as though atheists are constantly looking for God and making sure there are others out there who will still confirm back to them that they also still haven't found God despite their constant and incessant seeking. Attempting to push your experiential perspective onto others and sell them on it is different from any other religion how?
You are correct that there is no need for such a manual. The only thing required to be an atheist is to not subscribe to the belief in a god. That's really the only thing the word means and that's the real beauty of being an atheist: it requires so little effort.
Just this evening (and this is absolutely true), I was talking to one of my brothers. He had been over to visit our father (who art in Great Fall, Virginia) along with one of my other brothers. As my brother John said to me, "It was nice having a conversation among the three of us, all Republican and all believers in God." We both had a chuckle over that one.
Then he told me that our father had asked him and my older brother "How can I get Steve to believe in God."
I told John that it was actually very simple: just show me evidence. And that's when John said "You just have to have faith." And I shared with him my favorite definition of faith: the willing suspension of critical thought. He didn't want to discuss it further.