Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: MineralMan
MM, as an atheist, how do you explain/understand creation and the many wonders and mysteries of the earth?

Honestly, you are the only atheist that I have ever really conversed with and you aren't at all anything like what I assumed atheists are. You're actually a very well spoken and intelligent person and kinds nice to boot.

I guess I am just curious for the sake of curiosity and since you said before that you don't answer Freepmail, I thought I would ask you here. If you don't want to answer I understand.

88 posted on 12/10/2004 7:01:56 AM PST by PleaseNoMore
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies ]


To: PleaseNoMore
You didn't ask me, and I hope you don't mind my jumping in, but as I see things even if I chose to explain the wonders and mysteries of earth via a god, I would then just find myself pondering the wonders and mysteries of the god.

I honestly don't understand how people can answer the question "where did it all come from" with "it came from God" and actually find any satisfaction in that. It's not so much that I don't accept that there's something outside of the universe - as a matter of fact, if I had to guess I would say that there must be some dimension of existence beyond and 'before' the universe - it is just that its nature strikes me as utterly indecipherable.

No, it's not satisfactory to me in the slightest that existence seems so ultimately unexplainable, but it gives me no satisfaction to explain it with something utterly beyond comprehension. For that matter, every religion basically gives the same answer: "First there was nothing, then there was God." How is that any better than: "First there was nothing, then there was existence"?

The whole thought process is just all very perplexing to me. When I consciously abandoned the faith - if I could even call it that - I recognized in hindsight that I never actually believed. It was something I did out of routine, or whatever, but the sense that there was anything 'out there' is totally foreign to me.

It's also not that I have a personal problem with God (unless it's some kind of repressed thing, like a problem with him being so deceptive and inscrutable, or whatever LOL). Quite the contrary, I would more than gladly believe if I could persuade myself to believe. I actually want to believe in God. I want the serenity that I imagine would follow. But, at the same token, I just cannot imagine myself ever believing.

Oh well. Even if there were a god, my view is that there cannot be an omnipotent, omniscient god without absolute predestination. So, que sera, sera!

92 posted on 12/10/2004 7:29:53 AM PST by AntiGuv (™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson