Am I wrong in my conclusion that god doesnt exist?
May 4, 2011 7:26 PM Subscribe
I am an atheist. I have put so much time and effort into coming to this conclusion. I have analyzed to the ends of the earth. My verdict is in. Am I wrong?
This is the result of my deliberations after analyzing all the evidence regarding the existence of god. At first I would think well there must be some intelligent "being" (non human, unknowable) that created everything because look, we have all we need here on earth: oxygen, fire, water, so on. Then my analyzation took me to thinking that it is mere happenstance that one of many planets was just the right amount away from and close to the sun to create conditions for life and the molecules and compounds that landed on the earth happened to be the ones that created what we would need to live. Then I further thought that we can imagine and conceive until we are blue blah blah but we are stuck in a human mind and will never be able to conceptualize outside those bounds - we cannot know the unknowable, we cannot fathom cognitively what nothing is or what could come before nothing, we cannot know anything that does not originate from a human framework. This was really the clincher for me on my road to atheism.
Because our epistemology is rooted in human senses, even attempting to think about a potential god/creator is stupid. Its like trying to imagine what it would be like to be a TV. Further we are only able to conceive of such potential entities anthropomorphically. Sorry I am a little disjointed here but my brain has not yet put together all the evidence/pieces in a better way then this.
It not that I think I KNOW that there is NO god, its that I believe that we CANNOT and hence will not ever know. This cannot-knowing is the equivalent of no god. I used to think that we have been created so perfectly (the body is a mesmerizing fascination which tempts even me to the seduction of a god), but we havent really. We have evolved sure and all the changes altogether seem wow so impressive, but that is more cognitive histrionics. I think we are all just a brain, I am an extreme materialist reductionist and I think our brains are suich primitive little deceivers. They fool us into all kinds of subjective nonsense, including "feeling god", "knowing god", etc. I have had very intelligent people swear to me that if only I would open up and ask I would then KNOW god with certainty. I think all they are KNOWING is the neural feedback of the XYZ system, i.e., their little brains are firing off and chemicals are going crazy in the area of the brain that is responsible for these sensations that we take to be some objective KNOWING. Why does it seem so obvious to me that the brain, the material stuff of cognition is repsonsible for all our feelings which we then turn into something they are not?
Subjectivity, its all we got. The brain can do anything, it can make you feel anything, it can convince you of anything, it can create whatever you THINK is real. The brain is really rather stupid.
Sorry this is rambling and long but I dont have the best organizational skills. The thing is I do think anything is possible and I do think I only know that the brain is responsible for all the stuff we think has a life of its own: god, love, mesmerization, all emotion. Why dont more people think like I do and "realize" that the brain is a lump of matter producing all kinds of false subjectivity that we then turn into these constructs and build our lives around them?
Unlike Stephen Hawkin for instance I at the same time do not believe the big bang came out of nothing - this is where my "I cant know anything" comes in because I diverge from him here in that as I already said, trapped in our humanness we cannot know of things that our brains cannot conceptualize such as "nothing" and "before nothing".
Have I missed anything? Have I forgotten anything here in my deliberations and might I then be wrong about god?
This is the result of my deliberations after analyzing all the evidence regarding the existence of god. At first I would think well there must be some intelligent "being" (non human, unknowable) that created everything because look, we have all we need here on earth: oxygen, fire, water, so on. Then my analyzation took me to thinking that it is mere happenstance that one of many planets was just the right amount away from and close to the sun to create conditions for life and the molecules and compounds that landed on the earth happened to be the ones that created what we would need to live. Then I further thought that we can imagine and conceive until we are blue blah blah but we are stuck in a human mind and will never be able to conceptualize outside those bounds - we cannot know the unknowable, we cannot fathom cognitively what nothing is or what could come before nothing, we cannot know anything that does not originate from a human framework. This was really the clincher for me on my road to atheism.
Because our epistemology is rooted in human senses, even attempting to think about a potential god/creator is stupid. Its like trying to imagine what it would be like to be a TV. Further we are only able to conceive of such potential entities anthropomorphically. Sorry I am a little disjointed here but my brain has not yet put together all the evidence/pieces in a better way then this.
It not that I think I KNOW that there is NO god, its that I believe that we CANNOT and hence will not ever know. This cannot-knowing is the equivalent of no god. I used to think that we have been created so perfectly (the body is a mesmerizing fascination which tempts even me to the seduction of a god), but we havent really. We have evolved sure and all the changes altogether seem wow so impressive, but that is more cognitive histrionics. I think we are all just a brain, I am an extreme materialist reductionist and I think our brains are suich primitive little deceivers. They fool us into all kinds of subjective nonsense, including "feeling god", "knowing god", etc. I have had very intelligent people swear to me that if only I would open up and ask I would then KNOW god with certainty. I think all they are KNOWING is the neural feedback of the XYZ system, i.e., their little brains are firing off and chemicals are going crazy in the area of the brain that is responsible for these sensations that we take to be some objective KNOWING. Why does it seem so obvious to me that the brain, the material stuff of cognition is repsonsible for all our feelings which we then turn into something they are not?
Subjectivity, its all we got. The brain can do anything, it can make you feel anything, it can convince you of anything, it can create whatever you THINK is real. The brain is really rather stupid.
Sorry this is rambling and long but I dont have the best organizational skills. The thing is I do think anything is possible and I do think I only know that the brain is responsible for all the stuff we think has a life of its own: god, love, mesmerization, all emotion. Why dont more people think like I do and "realize" that the brain is a lump of matter producing all kinds of false subjectivity that we then turn into these constructs and build our lives around them?
Unlike Stephen Hawkin for instance I at the same time do not believe the big bang came out of nothing - this is where my "I cant know anything" comes in because I diverge from him here in that as I already said, trapped in our humanness we cannot know of things that our brains cannot conceptualize such as "nothing" and "before nothing".
Have I missed anything? Have I forgotten anything here in my deliberations and might I then be wrong about god?
This post was deleted for the following reason: this is really a big heady question that is outside of what AskMe can help you with. -- jessamyn
It not that I think I KNOW that there is NO god, its that I believe that we CANNOT and hence will not ever know.
That's a pretty standard definition of being agnostic.
posted by birdherder at 7:33 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
That's a pretty standard definition of being agnostic.
posted by birdherder at 7:33 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
I would only quibble with your:
"This cannot-knowing is the equivalent of no god".
I would argue that's a matter of opinion. I agree that given our human limitations we probably can't really understand whatever god is (if he exists). But that doesn't necessarily means that there wasn't/isn't a creator something floating about.
Personally I'm agnostic. Yes, its the mellow version of atheism but to me it means I have at least a door open to a minute possibility. As I grow older I'm finding that not every single thing has to be ruled by an absolute spock-like logic. A lot of irrationality is built into the system.
posted by Omon Ra at 7:36 PM on May 4, 2011
"This cannot-knowing is the equivalent of no god".
I would argue that's a matter of opinion. I agree that given our human limitations we probably can't really understand whatever god is (if he exists). But that doesn't necessarily means that there wasn't/isn't a creator something floating about.
Personally I'm agnostic. Yes, its the mellow version of atheism but to me it means I have at least a door open to a minute possibility. As I grow older I'm finding that not every single thing has to be ruled by an absolute spock-like logic. A lot of irrationality is built into the system.
posted by Omon Ra at 7:36 PM on May 4, 2011
Response by poster: But I thought agnostic implied that I believe in spirit and soul and some higher power? Guess I need to re read my definitions.
Tau ceti: I am fine with calling myself an atheist, thats not the problem. The problem is that even if I cant definitely absolutely etc "prove" that there is no god, I can never prove there is one because I am only expressing my neurological limitations.
posted by cerebral at 7:37 PM on May 4, 2011
Tau ceti: I am fine with calling myself an atheist, thats not the problem. The problem is that even if I cant definitely absolutely etc "prove" that there is no god, I can never prove there is one because I am only expressing my neurological limitations.
posted by cerebral at 7:37 PM on May 4, 2011
But I thought agnostic implied that I believe in spirit and soul and some higher power?
Nope. Agnostic means you believe you don't know whether or not there's a God. If you believe in a specific higher power, you're not agnostic about it; you firmly believe in it.
posted by John Cohen at 7:39 PM on May 4, 2011
Nope. Agnostic means you believe you don't know whether or not there's a God. If you believe in a specific higher power, you're not agnostic about it; you firmly believe in it.
posted by John Cohen at 7:39 PM on May 4, 2011
« Older How can I get Android apps onto my Velocity Cruz... | How can I easily switch between tracks while... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
But I say I am an atheist. At some point, you have to have the courage of your convictions and accept that in this specific case, 99.99% is the best you're going to be able to do.
posted by tau_ceti at 7:33 PM on May 4, 2011