Oh, good, another bunch of questions for atheists – as if the believers haven’t been told often enough.
10 Questions For Every Atheist – “Some Questions Atheist Cannot Truly and Honestly REALLY Answer! Which leads to some interesting conclusions…”
1. How Did You Become an Atheist?
The indoctrination I was subjected to as a child wasn’t strong enough to keep me from figuring out there wasn’t a jot of evidence for any god. When there is zero evidence for something we might as well behave as if if doesn’t exist rather than pretending it does. Most of us don’t go around worrying that the Loch Ness monster exists, or Big Foot. I realise some people do, but most of you Christians may well agree those guys look like idiots. Sorry, but that’s how you look to an atheist.
2. What happens when we die?
Our bodies decompose, or are burned in a crematorium, or whatever. When the brain stops working there’s no sign of the mysterious ‘us’ I think you’re going on about. That ‘us’, or that ‘me’, exists as a transient effect of a complex brain doing so much self-monitoring it makes itself think there’s a thing, ‘me’. The brain can’t detect the minute detail of this process, so to the brain this higher level process feels like a free floating thing, a soul, a mind; and because it can’t detect the detail it also makes it feel like the causal effects that make the brain-body do stuff feel like a non-phyisically-caused will, a free will. This is an illusion caused by this inability to detect the detail, and is an evolutionarily efficient process.
Look, when you want to test if your cup of tea is warm or cold, you put your hand around the cup and feel it. This produces a general warm-cold sensation, a feeling, in the brain. You don’t count the action potential blips in your hand’s neurons. Imagine having to check every neuron connection in your brain – trillions of them. Far more efficient to let them do their thing and pop up a message into the conscious brain “Hey! Hungry! Lunch time yet? Yeah. I’m off to lunch.” – It feels like a free will decision, but it isn’t. Try some of this stuff: https://ronmurp.net/consciousness/
When all that stops, you’re dead. There are some states where much of the biology is still working, the heart is still ticking, the neurons are still firing to some extent, but your brain’s conscious processes aren’t aware of it. You’re asleep, unconscious, brain dead, or dying, … – it depends on the details. Anyway, when you’re dead there’s none of that processing. You are no longer around. And you no longer care about whether you were an atheist, a believer, or even a Belieber.
3. What if you’re wrong? And there is a Heaven? And there is a HELL!
What if you’re wrong and you’ve chosen the wrong God? I’ll deal with it, I’ll have to, as will you.
But if there’s a God at all worth giving the time of day here’s what he’ll do. He’ll give all us humanst science based atheists a pat on the back and welcome us into proper heaven, for not being so dumb as to fall for all that religious crap that’s so easy to dismiss. And you think such an intelligent entity wants to spend eternity with a bunch of gullible idiots that prayed to the wrong god because they beleived some ancient dick’s stories? What do you take God for, an idiot?
4. Without God, where do you get your morality from?
This question shows the religious confusion about morality. It’s human opinions about how best to get along. That’s all it is, opinons put on a pedastal, dressed in fine clothes, and worshipped as if it’s the word of some god. Try this: Morality and Opinions
5. If there is no God, can we do what we want? Are we free to murder and rape? While good deeds are unrewarded?
Yes. Go ahead. Try it. Plenty do. Some even do it in the name of their god. Have you not noticed reality? Good deeds do indeed often go unrewarded, and bad ones unpunished. Inventing an after life were you think this gets sorted out is just as childinsh as “Not fair! I’m gonna tell dad!” Take some responsibility; get on board with learning some ethics. If you need God to sort this out it means you are incapable of doing it yourself.
6. If there is no god, how does your life have any meaning?
I give it meaning. As do you. Of course you give it a pointless unfounded meaning be pretending there’s a god that tells you what to get out of life. Loser.
7. Where did the universe come from?
Who the hell knows. At least cosmologists are trying to figure that out, with science, instead of pretending some desert dude knew.
8. What about miracles? What all the people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? What about those who claim to have seen saints or angels?
There’s no evidence for miracles. The people that claim connection with Jesus are deluding themselves. What about people that claim to have seen Big Foot or Nessie or Santa? Are you a child?
9. What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris?
They are people trying to figure out various aspects of reality, from brains to biology to society. They don’t use desert tribe myths to do that. And, all this ‘racist’, ‘Islamophobe’ bull shit? They are humanists. You ahve been listening to the lies of others so much I guess your bad opnion of them is screwed – and if you’re a bleiever you probably feel offended by being told you’re believing stupid stuff.
10. If there is no God, then why does every society have a religion?
Because humans as a lot range from reasonable inquisitive intelligence to totally dumb gullibility. Even an intelligent person can be indoctrinated into religion so that it’s really ahrd to shake off. And, religion is a great social control mechanism, so it’s no surprise that many a narcisistic monarch or religious leader has used it as the bg stick to keep the plebs in line. You’re still in line.
For answers to similarly ‘clever’ questions that are supposed to confound atheists, try these: What do Atheists Actually Believe?
And, from Damion over at Skeptic Ink network: Ten Questions For Every Christian. Damn, I’d be embarrased having to answer those.
Nice set of answers, Ron. Just saying.
Cheers.