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ORIGINAL: MsSaskia

Basing them on something like a higher power is where it stops being useful for me.

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ORIGINAL: shymetalsub

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ORIGINAL: ThatDaveGuy69

Here's a little something I wish I could memorize - it's very well done

There is No God
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
Penn Jillette

I realize what you're saying, atheism is a statement that there is no god, which is even theoretically virtually impossible to prove. But the world atheist is more commonly used to describe people who believe very strongly that there is no god. I do not claim that there can't be one, but calling myself an agnostic would only be technically true. As Richard Dawkins explained, you can't disprove that there's a little teapot orbiting jupiter, but does that make you a teapot agnostic? In theory yes, but in practice you just don't believe in the tea pot if you have half a brain.

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ORIGINAL: shymetalsub

What say you?

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ORIGINAL: Untouched1282

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ORIGINAL: MsSaskia

I love Penn's stance.  Thank you for reiterating it here. 

I'm atheist with moments of agnosticism coming fewer and farther between.  Religion provides a convenient set of ethics for comfortable cohabitation for large groups of people.  It's comforting and most of them have some very useful ideas.  Basing them on something like a higher power is where it stops being useful for me.

A "Higher Power"? Isn't that what the moderns would consider common sense or reason? People are good out of self-interest. Either they want a relationship with God/a place in Heaven, or they don't want to go to prison.

(I know being good becaue you love one another is also a possibility...)

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ORIGINAL: shymetalsub

I realize what you're saying, atheism is a statement that there is no god, which is even theoretically virtually impossible to prove. But the world atheist is more commonly used to describe people who believe very strongly that there is no god. I do not claim that there can't be one, but calling myself an agnostic would only be technically true. As Richard Dawkins explained, you can't disprove that there's a little teapot orbiting jupiter, but does that make you a teapot agnostic? In theory yes, but in practice you just don't believe in the tea pot if you have half a brain.

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ORIGINAL: Untouched1282

I'm a Believer (in something bigger than humankind), sorry. 

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ORIGINAL: shymetalsub

I realize what you're saying, atheism is a statement that there is no god

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ORIGINAL: ineedotkwhen you consider how complex the world is, and how much of a detailed, self-sustaining machine the human body is, and the extent of our thinking, reasoning, and creative abilities, do you really think this all came about simply through some kind of evolutionary process?

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ORIGINAL: ThatDaveGuy69
does anyone here need a book to tell that kiling, stealing. etc. are wrong?