A continuing post on my views on atheism and theism.
I watched a documentary called The Trouble With Atheism (watch here), which essentially criticizes atheism. I was reluctant to watch it when I first came across it, because of my strong views on atheism. I decided to suck it up and watch it anyways.
I like documentaries because you can easily follow a storyline, with a distinct voice. You follow a person's real perspective. It is so hard to be a un-biased watcher of any documentary because of the power of the voice, and how convincing it can get. But this is also why I hate documentaries.
This documentary, in my mind, was horrible. It didn't come up with too many arguments actually against atheism. First, it talks about how atheists criticize other religions for being hateful, when atheists are hateful themselves.
Let me point out for the first time; atheism doesn't mean "I hate religion" it means "I don't believe in god" therefore the voice of the documentary, Liddle's, argument is invalid.
It goes on to look at scientific reasons as to why we are here, and then Liddle will say "What happened before the big bang theory?" and what happened before all of these scientific things.
The end truth is; we don't know. It is like Schrodinger's cat, you don't know whether the cat is dead or not until you open the box. You don't know if god is real or not... but there is no box to open, you just can't tell. This is why agnosticism is more supported in this documentary than theism. We don't know how earth was created. We just don't.
At least twice in the documentary, Liddle asks/tells atheists that they are being "rather arrogant" about their views. Some atheists call the belief in religion "stupid". I agree, but that is not my point here. My point here is why the hell is Liddle calling atheists arrogant when he himself is being arrogant, even if simply by asking the atheists why they are arrogant?
What?
The one scientist responded something like (paraphrasing) "I don't care if I am being arrogant, because I am right". Way to go.
The funny thing about the atheism vs theism debate is it doesn't matter what side has more solid evidence than the other because in the end, even if atheism has 1,000,000 pieces of evidence that supports there is no god, and theism has 500,000, that evidence doesn't actually make it more real... we still don't know for 100% CERTAIN. The amount of evidence either side has, doesn't matter.
I am an agnostic atheist, and I think that god doesn't exist. Logic makes more sense to me than a human creator.
Actually, the documentary did put one thing in my head, into words. It went something like: "Religion hasn't been passed on because it is logical or because people believe in it, but because it gives a sense of comfort and structure to society".
I've been trying to say that the reason why religion has survived this long is because of a psychological way of making someone feel better about them self or more "moral". The word "comfort" is what I was looking for! Aha! Thank-you documentary.
My final points always seem to come to two things, every time.
1. Our fear of chaos
2. Us not wanting to be wrong
1. Towards the end of the documentary, it made the point I hate the most: that atheists are not always moral beings. It was said that by taking god out of the equation, that a magical utopia won't just happen, because of human nature. We still do bad, even without god, and even with god, within our belief system in society. Maybe some theists just believe in god in fear of chaos, and want these religious moral values instilled in society, still just so we don't have chaos everywhere. To many people, without a god, we don't have morals. Without an afterlife, we have nothing to act good for. I am not a moral person, well I am, but not always. I just think that we should act upon our natural instincts. Sure, I don't want to be killed, but technically within nature, killing is natural. I don't fear chaos. Maybe this is why I don't fear labelling myself as an atheist.
2. People naturally hate being wrong. We may bring up a point, argue it with another, halfway believe we are wrong, and continue arguing it anyways because we don't want to lose our pride. We don't want to lose our pride. Losing our pride and losing an argument means we are wrong. So if a person believes for decades in their life that god exists, and suddenly believe god doesn't exist, that would mean admitting they are wrong. It is a much easier choice to make to keep on believing in god. This is one of the reasons why I value Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote from Self-Reliance so much "Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though in contradict every thing you said today".
Have you watched the documentary? What did you think?
I watched a documentary called The Trouble With Atheism (watch here), which essentially criticizes atheism. I was reluctant to watch it when I first came across it, because of my strong views on atheism. I decided to suck it up and watch it anyways.
I like documentaries because you can easily follow a storyline, with a distinct voice. You follow a person's real perspective. It is so hard to be a un-biased watcher of any documentary because of the power of the voice, and how convincing it can get. But this is also why I hate documentaries.
This documentary, in my mind, was horrible. It didn't come up with too many arguments actually against atheism. First, it talks about how atheists criticize other religions for being hateful, when atheists are hateful themselves.
Let me point out for the first time; atheism doesn't mean "I hate religion" it means "I don't believe in god" therefore the voice of the documentary, Liddle's, argument is invalid.
It goes on to look at scientific reasons as to why we are here, and then Liddle will say "What happened before the big bang theory?" and what happened before all of these scientific things.
The end truth is; we don't know. It is like Schrodinger's cat, you don't know whether the cat is dead or not until you open the box. You don't know if god is real or not... but there is no box to open, you just can't tell. This is why agnosticism is more supported in this documentary than theism. We don't know how earth was created. We just don't.
At least twice in the documentary, Liddle asks/tells atheists that they are being "rather arrogant" about their views. Some atheists call the belief in religion "stupid". I agree, but that is not my point here. My point here is why the hell is Liddle calling atheists arrogant when he himself is being arrogant, even if simply by asking the atheists why they are arrogant?
What?
The one scientist responded something like (paraphrasing) "I don't care if I am being arrogant, because I am right". Way to go.
The funny thing about the atheism vs theism debate is it doesn't matter what side has more solid evidence than the other because in the end, even if atheism has 1,000,000 pieces of evidence that supports there is no god, and theism has 500,000, that evidence doesn't actually make it more real... we still don't know for 100% CERTAIN. The amount of evidence either side has, doesn't matter.
I am an agnostic atheist, and I think that god doesn't exist. Logic makes more sense to me than a human creator.
Actually, the documentary did put one thing in my head, into words. It went something like: "Religion hasn't been passed on because it is logical or because people believe in it, but because it gives a sense of comfort and structure to society".
I've been trying to say that the reason why religion has survived this long is because of a psychological way of making someone feel better about them self or more "moral". The word "comfort" is what I was looking for! Aha! Thank-you documentary.
My final points always seem to come to two things, every time.
1. Our fear of chaos
2. Us not wanting to be wrong
1. Towards the end of the documentary, it made the point I hate the most: that atheists are not always moral beings. It was said that by taking god out of the equation, that a magical utopia won't just happen, because of human nature. We still do bad, even without god, and even with god, within our belief system in society. Maybe some theists just believe in god in fear of chaos, and want these religious moral values instilled in society, still just so we don't have chaos everywhere. To many people, without a god, we don't have morals. Without an afterlife, we have nothing to act good for. I am not a moral person, well I am, but not always. I just think that we should act upon our natural instincts. Sure, I don't want to be killed, but technically within nature, killing is natural. I don't fear chaos. Maybe this is why I don't fear labelling myself as an atheist.
2. People naturally hate being wrong. We may bring up a point, argue it with another, halfway believe we are wrong, and continue arguing it anyways because we don't want to lose our pride. We don't want to lose our pride. Losing our pride and losing an argument means we are wrong. So if a person believes for decades in their life that god exists, and suddenly believe god doesn't exist, that would mean admitting they are wrong. It is a much easier choice to make to keep on believing in god. This is one of the reasons why I value Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote from Self-Reliance so much "Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though in contradict every thing you said today".
Have you watched the documentary? What did you think?
