It's Time To Stop Believing In God

[fallenleaf]

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

1 Corinthians 13:11

 

It's over. You're old enough now that believing in God is just starting to become a silly exercise in self-delusion. Maybe, deep down, you already know this or came to this conclusion but I really feel it needs to be said. You just can't keep fooling yourself and, as uncomfortable as it may be, the time has come to put away that last childish thing.

 

I know the believers out there hate when I compare God and Santa Claus but nothing makes the point as obvious and as clear. It's fine to have believed in Santa. It was fun and you got a thrill out of it. If you're 37 and still believe in Santa, it's just pathetic.

 

There comes a time in your life when you understand how silly it is to believe a guy living near the North Pole is actively monitoring your activities in an effort to determine if you're going to be rewarded when Christmas comes. I do not know of a single adult who worries about cheating on their taxes because it might get them put on the naughty list. Unless, of course, that naughty list is the list of people who are going to be audited. In the exact same way, there comes a time in your life when you've got to understand how silly it is to believe some being up in the sky is actively concerned about your activities and has you on one list or another to determine if you'll be rewarded or punished in the future. This man sits a little higher up, and his reckoning is a little further off, but it's the same basic idea. If it's abundantly clear that one belief should be abandoned... then how could the other be considered valuable?

 

There are actual reasons to know there isn't a God, just as there are actual reasons to know there isn't a Santa Claus. I am not here to discuss those. You should be more than capable of finding the information with the internet and access to tons of books. But, even reading the Bible with an open mind is good enough. Or, short of reading, just thinking about it more critically than you normally allow. I am here, writing this, to let you know that it's time. It's time to accept it and move on.

 

Moving on isn't easy. You'll probably deal with it in your own way. That's part of the process. A few of you, realizing that you have permission to stop the nonsense, will find a weight immediately lifted off your shoulders -- when it finally happened, that is how it felt for me. And there will be a great urge to let everyone around you know what you finally learned. Accept this urge but it is probably best to let it pass. I might get castigated by the other non-believers for suggesting that it is permissible to not share your good news with others. Remember the kid who came to school in first grade and told everyone there was no Santa? Remember how well that worked for him? Yeah, it didn't. The other kids weren't ready to accept that and when the teacher did a little verbal hand-wave that alleviated their doubts, nothing had changed. Well, except that everyone felt the kid who didn't believe was a little strange and was probably going to get coal for Christmas. This will happen to you when you first go out and announce to the world that there's no God. People will be upset and defensive then someone will do a little verbal hand-wave and the startled believers will be lulled back into their happy little sleep. And the only one who ends up different will be you and it won't be for the better.

 

I realize, as I write this, how horribly cynical it sounds. I know the one great goal of atheism (if it could be said to have one) is to be accepted and to be able to be open about your lack of belief in a God. I realize, honestly I do, that one of the major steps on that journey is for more and more people to be honest and open about their lack of belief; so that humanity, as a whole, will start to see that not believing in God is more common and acceptable than their church and upbringing might lead them to believe. It is a good goal to eventually be completely out regarding your lack of belief. But don't rush that goal and don't feel compelled to announce this fact unprovoked to people who aren't ready to hear it.

 

What if you are provoked? Where I live, in the southern United States, the topic of religion is bound to come up once in a while in casual conversation. Most of the time, if the people involved are casual acquaintances or people I work with, I pretend as if I am around a bunch of children discussing Santa. I smile and just stay out of the conversation. If directly asked, I often use the same sort of excuses for Santa and God. "Of course there's a God... how else could gravity work?!" Or something equally stupid to the half-enlightened mind. But, usually, I find a way to excuse myself before that.

 

Look, it's time. I don't care if your friends still believe in Santa. . . sorry, still believe in 'God'. I don't care if your family or children or your next-door neighbor (Ted who lets you borrow his trimmer when you mow your lawn) still believe. It is time you, as a thinking adult, accept that you're too old for such childish things. I am not asking you to share... or to change your routine. Go to church, tithe (if you want), sing little stupid religious songs on your way to work (if it makes you happy)... face it, how much you want to change your actions to fit your new understanding is up to you. I still hang stockings on Christmas and put up a tree. I know that I will be filling them or that family members will put the presents under the tree and I can still enjoy it. I can read "The Night Before Christmas" and enjoy it as a poem without needing to accept the truth of what it claims. Personally, I don't leave milk and cookies out... I'm lactose intolerant and like brownies more anyway. But that is fine, because I am not trying to please Santa, I am just doing what works for me. I even pretended to be Santa on the phone for a close friend of mine who wanted his kids to be able to talk to Santa. I didn't get offended or upset because my lack of belief in Santa was being challenged... I "Ho ho ho"ed it up and had some fun.

 

Do what makes you happy and what you find meaningful and fulfilling but accept just this one thing, "It's time to stop believing in God."

[Legion]

I suggest that it's futile for you to tell me what to do. If I don't want to grow up I don't have to!

[bush country]

"It's time to stop believing in God."

 

Beautiful!

 

That says so many thing the way I would like to say them. There are a lot of people I would like to send it to.

[PandaPirate]

You mean Santa Claus isn't real?

[Guest eejay]

Well said FallenLeaf, well said!!!!!!!!

[upstarter]

I think we should all start fanning this out on the internet, like reverse glurge! It's so perfectly and so clearly stated.

 

You have risen yet another notch in my estimation, fallenleaf. How do you keep doing that?

 

Heather

[fallenleaf]

Thanks everyone. Although, the more I read it... the more I see things I don't like and want to fix. But that's just me, I can't leave anything alone.

[fallenleaf]

May I add a twist to the equation. Stop believing in 'God' and also stop believing in 'No god.'

 

A hypothesis should remain hypothetic.

 

You may add that twist but I'll disagree with its implications. One does not say, "I don't believe in 'Santa' but I also don't believe in 'No Santa'." Not believing in Santa is characterized by a lack of belief and not a negative assertion but at its heart... when cornered... you're stuck believing there is no Santa. If you don't believe in God... you're splitting hairs if you're arguing that you don't believe in "no God."

 

Sure, there is a level of apathy regarding the existence or non-existence of God that is more balanced than a denial of one but we're not talking about your atheists from birth here who (like myself as a child) just didn't understand the God thing and dismissed it as unimportant. We're talking about people who held the belief... and moving beyond that belief entails first letting it go. If they find a way back to a more apathetic middle ground... great.

 

A lack of belief is not an extreme position.

 

Anyway, when you tell a kid there is no Santa... you don't say... "Well, there might be a Santa but no one is really sure and there's no real proof of his existing or not." You flat out tell them the way it is. If, later, proof that Santa is real manages to surface... then you can reevaluate your lack of belief in Santa in respect to this new information.

 

 

Edit: God, as used above, is consistent on both sides of all statements. To say "I don't believe in 'the God of the Bible' but I don't believe in 'No God'" is different from saying "I don't believe in 'Jesus' but I don't believe in 'No Jesus'."

[Legion]

If, later, proof that Santa is real manages to surface... then you can reevaluate your lack of belief in Santa in respect to this new information.

And you can can kick his ass for me Reboot. I didn't get that set of Legos I asked for. And I was good damn it!

[disEnchanted]

My daughter got in trouble in 5th grade because she and a classmate had the "nerve" to admit that they didn't believe in Santa. The librarian had read the class the story, The Polar Express and afterwards yelled at the 2 kids because they didn't believe in Santa. Then the counselor was called in to talk to the class and she told them that she still believes in Santa because she gets a gift every year under the tree that no one will admit to giving her. Now remember, these children are 10 years old, not 5!!! (I guess my daughter admitting that she doesn't believe in god would be out of the question?)

[Eponymic]

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

1 Corinthians 13:11

Do what makes you happy and what you find meaningful and fulfilling but accept just this one thing, "It's time to stop believing in God."

 

It's so funny that you would use that quote because to me that's one of the ultimate sad ironies of the Bible. The Christians quote it all the time, think they're doing it, but still don't realize they aren't!

 

Sad.

[fallenleaf]

I don't believe in unicorns. In fact, I can state that I believe in no unicorns. All the evidence at hand points to them being a human fabrication. If the evidence changes, so can my belief.

 

I don't believe in God for the same reason. And one can state they believe in no god in just the way you can state you believe in no unicorn. The evidence, at hand, suggests that god is a human fabrication and gives no cause to believe this particular fabrication might be true. If the evidence changes or is modified... then further discussion is warranted.

 

I believe in no God because that is where the evidence of history, culture, and myth points. I believe in no flying fire-breathing dragons. I believe in no fairies at the bottom of my garden. I believe there is no Zeus or Horus or Shiva. I believe this because that is where the evidence lies. And it lies in the same manner for all Gods.

 

To say that we can't believe something doesn't exist because there is no positive proof is to slide too far into the abyss. The burden of proof is on the believer and there is nothing wrong with a positive belief in the non-existence of a proposition.

 

Can you really say that you while you don't believe in the Dirty Mouse Messiah (FLORTNEY), you don't believe there is no FLORTNEY? Do you honestly accept it's possible that there's a invisible incorporeal mouse hovering out there forgiving those people who manage to avoid bathing for 24 hours? Of course not! Not all ideas are created equal and not all deserve equal merit.

 

You can't say that "Of course we know that there is no Santa because we can see how we invented him." [Yes this is a paraphrase.] And then claim that we can't know that there is "no God" because we can't prove there is no God. Depending on how we define Santa we can't PROVE there is no Santa. We can just keep making excuses and shifting the goals. And finally, get to the point where we state that you can't test for Santa (like God) and he only gives presents to those who believe in him and only when there are no doubters around.

[fallenleaf]

I can't make sense of your issue here at all. Your last post specifically seems to support the belief in 'no God' as being acceptable.

 

I could speculate that the god/creator hypothesis gets .00001% probability and the 'no god/creator' hypothesis gets 99.9998% .

 

Aside from leading one to wonder what the other 0.00019% of the possibilities are, this certainly qualifies as a belief in no God. Even your own quotation from "article 8.1 of the AML/CFT 2007 Guidance" supports the idea that you believe in "no God" according to these numbers. Actually, depending on how confident you are in knowledge itself (as one can 'know' something and be wrong) a person with a conviction that strong can be said to 'know' there is no God.

 

I suspect there is 'no god/creator' but I don't believe. There's quite a jump there... and it is religious in nature if you take the belief leap of faith !

 

This claim is ridiculous. The move from suspect to believe to know... these aren't leaps of faith. They are points on a continuum. The more information and understanding you have of that information, the farther you move on the continuum. There's no magic point where you just need to fling yourself into empty space because you've come as far as suspicion can go and aren't at belief yet. On top of that, belief is not religious -- at least not universally so. I believe in gravity. I believe when I throw a ball up that it will come back down. I do not 'know' this and, in fact, I know of exceptions to this belief. I believe in evolution because that is where the preponderance of evidence lies. But belief is not religious... I certainly am not planning a pilgrimage to Darwin's grave just because I believe in evolution.

 

Knowledge and belief are connected. You no longer believe in Santa because you have more knowledge. You do not have perfect knowledge of "no Santa" but you have sufficient knowledge that believing in "no Santa" is the most logical position to hold. God is not a special case. You can't hold a belief in "no Santa," "no unicorns," "no fairies," and "no FLORTNEY" to be permissible but then insist that a belief in "no God" is extreme and religious. Leave such special pleading to the religious.

[Legion]

We exist and are conscious of our existence, we are therefore in a discovery process.

If you believe without proof, that's called faith isn't it ?

 

But crossing the line into 'I believe' is in the religious zone isn't it ?.

It seems like I have said this many times, but I will keep saying it until someone teaches me otherwise.

 

Natural science rests on a philisophical foundation. We are aware of our existence. This is part of the philosophy. But then we go a step further and assert that there also exists that which is not us, which we call our ambience or environment. This creates a duality. Then, and this is a small leap of faith, we suppose there are relationships between the phenomena in our enviroment. We believe this in natural philosophy. It is our faith.

[Grandpa Harley]

As a suggestion, why not write your own manifesto, rather than try and turn someone else's into something that it is not?

[Legion]

There is no 'belief'/'unbelief' in a god there is only mere speculation.

The strangest animals abound today. Here comes Reboot, absolutist agnostic.

[Neon Genesis]

There is no 'belief'/'unbelief' in a god there is only mere speculation.

The strangest animals abound today. Here comes Reboot, absolutist agnostic.

So, it's basically Pascal's Wager all over again, that we have nothing to lose if we accept Reboot's point of view, but we have everything to lose if we don't accept Reboot's point of view, but obviously the same wager can't work in reserve because obviously Reboot's point of view is the bestest point of view everz over anyone else's. And here I thought we debunked Pascal's Wager a long time ago when we deconverted.

[Vigile]

I don't believe in unicorns. In fact, I can state that I believe in no unicorns. All the evidence at hand points to them being a human fabrication. If the evidence changes, so can my belief.

 

I agree with you 100%.

 

Perhaps the way to address ReBoot's issue is to then say, "but I don't know if life was created or if it spontaniously occured."

[fallenleaf]

I don't know if life evolved or if a magical sky fairy created everything -- including our false memories of a past and faked evidence for that past -- 2.73 seconds ago. -- Yes... I can see how this sort of thing makes for a valuable addition to one's life.

 

To say, "I don't know," when one clearly has an idea of the merit of one proposition, when compared to the other, is insanity. When the preponderance of data and evidence clearly supports one proposition, and only speculation and empty imagining the other, it's perfectly fine to dismiss the second proposition as false.

 

REBOOT, do you believe there is no Santa? Or could there be a Santa out there?

 

It seems to me that agnosticism is abundantly unscientific if it's willing to ignore where the evidence points in an effort to remain open to any possibility any random idiot can dream up.

[fallenleaf]

I'm talking about the god/creator hypothesis and from a scientific point of view. Limit your scope to that hypothesis.... Please !

 

The rest is irrelevant to the discussion and I don't care what you do with your unicorn or Santa. The item in contention here is a god/creator.

 

God/creator belief or disbelief is pure speculation. Logically it may seem obvious to you that there is no creator but there is no foundation in tested knowledge. It is a hypothesis.

 

Unless you can prove the 'no creator' hypothesis (evidence points) ? Same thing applies to the 'creator' hypothesis. We're not equipped to address these esoteric postulations with scientific tools, they should be sacked until we do. Humanity is waisting its time with this untestable stuff.

 

.... now back to my fruitloops

 

If that is the limit of your addition to this thread... take it elsewhere because it's completely irrelevant. You're moving the goal-posts now -- especially if you carefully read my posts and see that one already addresses using different forms of God on each side of your argument. We're talking about God... not some random creator -- which, as defined, has no bearing on this life anyway, so negative belief of that proposition has as much effect as positive belief of it (rendering it null). A creator god who plays no other role and has no other concern in our existence is hardly worth an intelligent man's time and thought.

 

If you lack the literacy skills to recognize that the God addressed in the original post is one who has the characteristics of the Christian God, it is especially pointless to keep adding more distraction to this thread.

 

If you are unable and/or unwilling to actually add to the conversation except to make special pleading against the use of the words 'belief' and 'God' then I can't see your benefit to continuing in it.

[Grandpa Harley]

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTAH!!!!!!

[MQTA]

...

 

This will happen to you when you first go out and announce to the world that there's no God. People will be upset and defensive then someone will do a little verbal hand-wave and the startled believers will be lulled back into their happy little sleep. And the only one who ends up different will be you and it won't be for the better.

 

I realize, as I write this, how horribly cynical it sounds. I know the one great goal of atheism (if it could be said to have one) is to be accepted and to be able to be open about your lack of belief in a God.

 

...

 

It's not a very popular thing to do, even on the net. But you manage to find likeminded folk on the side or afterwards.

 

I find those that believe have an unshakable belief, so it's ok, no matter what you say to them, they're well washed to dismiss it and never give it another thought.

 

 

 

I only have one issue with God and Jesus (well, just God if you're nonChristian), and that's with Death. Not Mine. Not anyone I don't know, but for those whom I end up going to a wake or funeral, close relation or just someone I know.

 

How would people deal with death Publicly? It's probably the one thing putting the veil of denial up. How do you help people deal with someone they love dying if the bill of goods they were sold since birth isn't reality?

 

And most Calendar people never even consider it, couldn't care less, this is the foundation of their life. Yeah, Santa, ok, no problem, gifts are gifts. But death of a loved one.

 

When my mom died in 2004 my closest friend couldn't understand how I was, he said I'm either in denial, shock, or maybe I really didn't care. When I explained to him my thoughts, he said If I wasn't really just in denial or shock, then I was lightyears ahead of Anyone he's ever known (he's 17 yrs my senior, too).

 

That was before I took steps backward and started to research Christianity and Jesus, comparing the OT & NT, goo goo googling, and then found the pages I have linked in MyStory in my sig. So it's been 4 years now, and I went through a lot of intense learning, thinking, pondering, comparing, reading, studying, talking with others, as time and stream of consciousness flowed. Amazing Journey, for sure. Had the most awesome year of my life in 2007. In 2006 I kinda lost all my family and friends when I left my marital home. The divorce should be final in less than a month.

 

Today I came from a wake of a friend who lost her older sister, they're in their 50s.

 

 

It's one thing for those who discover and learn and sort things out and realize whatever it really is, we don't know the rest; but those who are raised one way, never question, and don't want to know anything different, the ONE thing that will keep this going into the future are wakes and funerals, deaths of loved ones and cohorts.

 

I don't think I have ever been to a service that wasn't Christian of one denom or another, mostly Catholic, or Jewish, not Orthodox or Hasidic, mainly the American kind. Oh, yeah, one Orthodox one, that was wierd.

 

It's different going to them in the last 4 years, well, I guess once you lose your mom, no other funeral or wake can be any worse than that. I don't know... I'm not very good trying to talk their language, it's like the Fonz trying to say S s s s sorry.

 

Is this generation where all the non and exbelievers are? So in 30-50 years funerals will be changing ?