Rocker232 said:

AntiEverything said:

According to you we shouldn't put your own beliefs over the beliefs of someone elses, it is morally incorrect.

Well my moral compass tells me that it IS correct, and since you don't believe in favoring your own opinion over someone elses, then my moral values must be just as valid as yours, no?

logic is circular btw. fail at not realizing this places you in a sticky double bind where I'm always just as right as you.

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Explain to me how you are sure of your position. If you have proof of your point of view then you would obviously be in the morally correct position? Currently you're at this point

I don't know shit and you don't know shit, but my lack of knowledge is less than your own so I must be naturally right.

It doesn't work man and the point I'm trying to make is that defending either side is futile.

I will agree with one part of your post though; life should be about reaping as much enjoyment out of the world as possible, but I do not however think that is something specific to athiests.

If you are a true athiest than you should let nature take over. Those who deserve to do well will and those who pray for a false heaven won't. Let evolution take the reigns

I myself don't know shit and I do not think there is a real way to change that. Reading the Bible isn't going to make me blieve in God nor is reading Richard Dawkins going to make me an athiest. Let people think what they want unless its having an impact on your own life. If you live in the South then I feel for you, but I don't have any problems with Christans in day to day life.

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OneMoreRobot3021 said:

Hey there, I don't want to spend too much time on the interwebs here in sunny California but when I said atheism is a belief system, I meant it thus. Also, disclaimer: I had a few beers, not thinking super-straight, and not giving this the full thrust of my intellect. Just sort of vomiting thoughts into the text box.

Atheists believe that they have come to a "logical"/"rational" deduction about the nature of the universe based on "evidence." However, their reliance on this evidence is, in essence, a complete and utter "belief" in the Newtonian-Cartesian dynamic that has ruled science in recent eras.  I truly believe we only at the beginning of a shift that will be deeply challenging long-commonly-held assertions, especially due to developments in quantum physics, quantum mechanics, and quantum physicist David Bohm's own Holographic theory of the universe and of reality.

What bothers me - and here, let me give you another disclaimer. Until I discovered the psychedelic experience, I was a fervent, rabid atheist. I was a card carrying dues-paying member of American Atheists. I went out of my way to challenge "religious" beliefs at any opportunity with which I was presented.  I felt that humanity had once believed in the divine nature of all things,a nd slowly been chiseling that down, and since we had arrived in some religions at two divine beings, and at some in one divine being, then naturally the next logical step, the "progressive" step was NONE. However, I now feel that ALL is a much more apt step than NONE.

So, what bothers me is mainly the idea that atheists have (and in the political spectrum, my problem with a lot of the New York City hyper-liberals I live and work with on a daily basis) that their views on the universe are "progressive." However, I do understnad that every group, every ideology, believes itself to have its finger on the true pulse of things. That's just the nature of the beast. That's the nature of being human.

All I know is what my experience has shown me. I forget who it was - it was either Alexander Shulgin or Albert Hofmann - but someone once wrote in an essay that "belief implies effort." I find a lot of thrust to that statement. I think a lot of capital R Religious people BELIEVE with great effort in what they believe. Or little effort at all, but nonetheless - effort is there. I consider myself a pretty religious person. Not about a traffic controller in the sky, or a conscious force behind all things, but in a general pervasive meaning to the universe, the idea that consciousness IS the universe and that everything is truly alive on levels we can only begin to comprehend. My experiences, especially with DMT, have led me to feel very religious about being alive, and I now feel I simply don't have time, space, or energy in my heart for atheism which to me is an active belief in nothing. Or at least, that's what it was for me when I embraced it.

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