To me atheists are people who clearly see through the religious B.S.  These folks have a higher degree of "sales resistance" for lack of a better term.  And so they spiritually de-evolve into complete cynics.  Thus preventing their now narrowed vision from seeing the possibilities that can exist.  What if God is our Love?  That is one possibility that can prove the existence of God.  Not one people like to paint, but one none-the-less

No one knows, yet we all pretend.  

There is no one being on this planet that can tell you what will happen after you die for sure.  Or even if they did know, how to effectively manipulate results.   This life came with no "How to instruction manual."  So we have gone to many lengths to write them ourselves.  But they are only guesses.    The dangers of Atheism are real however.  For if one believes in oblivion upon death one may be cheated out of an experience that could be the highlight of your entire life.

The scientific Heaven and Hell.

When you die (unless obliterated completely) your brain stem goes into hyper-activity.  The brain knows its dying from lack of oxygen and releases all your endorphines giving you a shot of pure joy.  The pressure builds in the blood vessels behind your eyes giving you a "tunnel of light" hallucination as the endorphines teach you what peace feels like.  You fade into unconsciousness having what is termed "A waking dream."  Meaning the best damn dream you will ever have.  

Since the Subconscious mind will be escorting you to your death your beliefs will and can have effects on this critical moment.  If you believe you are going to heaven and will meet jesus, then so be it.  You meet Jesus.  If you think your a jerk ass and are definately going to hell, then guess what, your last moments will be a nightmare of your creation.

And anyone who has ever passed out can tell you seconds can turn into hours while in this state of mind.  So 5 minutes could theoretically seem like days or even weeks.  Thus enabling the possibility of your life flashing before your eyes.

Coming back to the danger of being atheist.  Were one to believe in nothing what would thier last moment of life be for them?

A black frame?

Such a sad waste.  My advice, define your own relationship with a God that can inspire you to do good things (make-em up if needed).  Build your own heaven and do what you think you need to do to get there.  Then when the time comes........  You go out in your own crafted style.  Not in oblivion.  Not in Hell or any other invention of humanity.  But the way you picked yourself.

Death comes in a dream.  

Just knowing that fact alone can perhaps give you a lucid death dream.  Meaning one you can control and actively manipulate.  Food for thought.  

I sure hope your faith in God hasn't dwindled Scary.  If so I engage you to try something that perhaps could re-invoke your faith.  Let me first say I do not adhere to any one religion.  But exhalt any church that inspires people to do good in the world.  And I not only believe in God, I KNOW in God.  

Here's the method to open communication with God.  It isn't easy and it takes pure concentration.  But once accomplished, you will never have to try to do it ever again.  

Step One:    Forgive everyone of everything who has done you wrong.

Step Two:    Love all of God's creations with your entire heart and expand your compassion to reach the entire universe.

Step Three:  Dedicate your entire existence to the betterment of all humanity and forfeit your soul to God's Love

Step Four:    Begin the harsh walk on the path of the creative altruist never looking back.

And then and only then God will greet you.  Not in a physical manifestation but by pure emphatic emotion.  You will uncontrollably fall to your knees in humility and shed tears of pure joy.  For God's presence is something to cherish and adore for all eternity.  You will then be blessed and empowered and will walk the earth as one of the chosen.  And you will have divine insight to matters most are blind.

I personally fear no death.  I fear no pain.  I fear no person.  Torture is irrelevant, for death is just a door to the next plain.  As my mentor once said, "I care not for longevity, for I have been to the mountain top and I have seen the promised land."  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew about it.  But not everyone can travel the path.  For some, their hearts are too weak and their hatred too strong.

But if anyone doubts my statement, I ask first that you try it.  

Sounds like your an Agnostic Dave.  A very respectable stance IMO.

Not really - the only people who get to pick the way they go out is those that kill themselves, and that method is a great example of going out by invention of humanity ... as compared to, say, dying of a disease.

Not likely, and even were that so, there is no guarantee of what a person will think of at a moment like that where the cells in the brain begin dying (which the brain would not be active during this whole process, in fact neurotransmission will begin to fail within a very short period of time). Even so, the belief or lack of belief in deity is separate from this issue entirely. Submitting one's cognitive understanding of the world, and even submitting to a belief that seems to defy logic, seems an absurd to do just on the basis of a few moments of undetermined pleasure at the end of my life.

Although I do think you are wrong about neurological processes that occur during death, as the brain is very sensitive to biological changes, and also because many people die quickly, or the neurological activity in the brain may produce an effect like oxygen starving drugs (hallucinations or nightmares or other strange experiences, often resulting in confusion and fear). As the brain cells begin to shut down, moments after oxygen starvation has begun (like, no more than two minutes in a healthy brain) cells begin to die.

Aside from this, even if your point was true, although belief for many religions are based upon undetermined future fears, the atheist stance is inherently not. Indeed, many are atheists because they feel that undetermined or unvarifiable consequences at some undetermined point in time in the future isn't a valid reason for a belief in the first place. Furthermore, having a neurological reaction in your brain at the time of death doesn't bring a deity into existence, nor does it change the logical processes that people go through in examining evidence of if there is a deity or not. All atheism is is a lack of belief in a deity.

Also, on that note, I should point out that although most atheists are skeptics and do not believe in an afterlife, there are some atheists who do. Atheism is lack of belief in a deity, not a lack of belief in the spiritual. So while I'm not a spiritualist, there are plenty of atheist spiritualists out there. There's also other religious groups who are atheists.



Not necesarily an eternity, but indeed it can cause (not necesarily equate, as love and acts are not necesarily the same thing) effects that can last the lifespans of all who are affected.



You may be hard-pressed to find such charities, but I can and do find them quite easily. I also know many atheists that when they don't find a charity that suits them, they find other ways to do as they need. Indeed, there is a great number of secular charities out there. Here are some that are specific to atheism:

http://www.atheistcharity.org/
http://www.sapere.net/
http://www.charitynaviga...h.summary/orgid/5631.htm
http://www.charitynaviga...h.summary/orgid/7621.htm
http://www.charitynaviga....summary/orgid/10196.htm
http://www.galha.org/ptt/index.html
http://www.humanism.org....article.asp?article=1422
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tocindia.htm
http://earthward.org/mission.shtml
http://www.humanitas.nl/ (neatherlands humanist organisation)
http://www.hivos.nl/ (another neatherlands one)
http://www.americanhumanist.org/index.html

There is something of a difference in the focuses of these charities and many christian charities that you find. Many of these charities, for example, only focus particular services to other countries, such as child welfare and other related resources. The reason is because each time a charity is developed within an organization like that, there is something of a rebellion. People won't take free daycare from an openly atheist organization, for example, in most places in the US, but they are OK with catholic ones. Now, this has more to do with social stigma than anything else. The US simply has not gotten past the secular=communism=really bad people connotations that sprung out of the anti-socialist propaganda of the 1940s and 50s. (This movement still affects us today, and is the reason why the pledge of allegiance contains the words "under god" and why money says, "in god we trust" - neither of those things existed before then and were a direct result of a church pressing for them to be incorporated into those things to exemplify the unity of the religious united states in its war against the secular communist countries).

(character limit)

That couldn't be more wrong.  Just about every church is a strong community. And the only thing that brought the people together were the common belief of their version of God.  And the religion is the only reason for it.  

And although I can see your ferver for atheism, it still is an "ism."  Meaning a belief system that can and will never be proven.  

I don't know why there is such a divisive nature in this. Labels are to identify us to hopefully others who feel 'the same' so we can have a sense of camaradere.

Being a Taoist, Christian, Deist, Pagan, Atheist, Theophist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Universalist, Secular Humanist, Satanist or what have you... shouldn't be to divide 'US from THEM' because they are merely labels to identify and they do NOT define who WE are. Just as being a woman or a man, creed or color shouldn't divide us.

We all have the same genetic building blocks that are 'human'. We are all carbon based life forms, and should treat and treat others with dignity and respect. We all come from something no matter if we believe it was a fluke of evolution or through the hand of your God.

Life is precious, as I learned so very intimately this weekend. It can be taken from us in an instant. And no matter if you think the person across from you, when they pass on, is going to a "benevolent hell realm" or a Kingdom of Glories...they are still with you now.  

Dark Comedian,

I just saw this today, and it reminded me of you ...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7WkGgmEoLkM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xpCCjd5rzVI

And Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is right ... giving up on a supernatural perspective in life does not mean that one loses out on an emotional benefit, or a feeling of enlightenment or utopia or spirituality. Indeed, it is intelligence and perspectives of science like this that fascinates me (and makes Dr. Tyson possibly one of the sexiest men on the planet).

an atheist is just a person who hasn't the want or the need for dogma. doesn't make them dangerous. certainly doesn't make all of them narrowed minded and incapable of trying to understand the world from both sides. not all people who need and want dogma- believe in some higher being- are open minded. hell, a lot of them are narrow minded as all fuck.

There are no atheists, so there is noone without religion on its own. Its just an expression for ppl who do not believe in the same God as we might believe in.

I actually prefer agnosticism.. which, to my mind is, "Don't know, don't care."

Science doesn't, and probably won't, know everything.   Simply because we can't measure God (or gods) doesn't mean that he/she/them don't exist.

However, since I don't have faith, I don't believe either.  I simply keep my mind open to the possibility that I haven't had an experience that would lead me to belief.

It is a very comfortable fence I sit on.   ;D

DarkComedian, first let me compliment you on a well written, and insightful post.

However, when you get to the nuts and bolts of your post, what you are left with is simply a slight variation on Pascal's Wager.

Pascal's Wager, for those of you who are not familar with it, is this:

Either God exists, or He does not exist.

If God exists, and you believe in Him, you go to heaven. Infinite reward.
If God exists, and you do not believe in Him, you go to hell. Inifinte punishment.
If God does not exist, and you believe in Him, you've lost nothing. No reward.
If God does not exist, and you don't believe in Him, you've lost nothing. No punishment.

Therefore, the only logical conclusion is you should believe in God. Because if you do, and you are right, you go to heaven. And, if you're wrong, nothing bad happens.

If you don't believe in God, and God does not exist, then nothing bad happens, but if you're wrong, you will spend an eternity in Hell! Not a wise choice!

Now, if we re-read your post with the above in mind, this is essentially what you are saying, except that you put "eternal life" in the place of Heaven.

If you don't believe, you may jepordize your eternal life in some undefined way. If you do believe, then you insure happiness in eternal life, or at least, make it more pleasureable in some way.

There are a number of problems with Pascal's Wager, and these same problems apply to your conclusions. First, belief in God is not necessarily harmless, as Pascal would have us believe. (Just ask the family members of those who died on 9/11 if certain beliefs in Allah are harmless.) Secondly, one cannot "choose" to believe or disbelieve, as Pascal's wager would imply that we can.

I can't, for example, simply decide that today, I will believe that UFOs abducted the President. Likewise, I cannot simply force myself to stop believing that the world is round. I just can't make myself believe something unless there is some reason to believe it, nor can I ignore the reasons I have for a belief to make myself stop believing in it. In this case, I would need proof, and some pretty substantial proof at that, before I could believe the President was abducted, or that the world is in reality, flat. It has nothing to do with whether or not I WANT to believe or disbelieve. Desire does not play a part in it, and desire plays a crutial part in Pascal's Wager. Doesn't work that way for most people.

According to an article in the Boston Globe:

[hr]

"Who Really Cares" is creating a stir in philanthropy circles -- and garnering acclaim from conservative pundits like ABC News's John Stossel and the radio host Michael Medved -- but is it to be trusted? At the AEI forum, Alan Abramson, director of the philanthropy program of the Aspen Institute, said that one should treat Brooks's sweeping conclusions with caution, given the "softness of the data" on charity in general. (He noted that Brooks himself concedes that we don't even know with certainty whether 50 percent or 80 percent of adult Americans donate to charity.)

Other scholars, like Paul Schervish, a sociologist and head of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, express doubts about the claims, though he found them hard to check on short notice. "One thing he does do," Schervish says in an interview, "is to go to different data sets depending on what he wants to be proving." Among other sources, Brooks uses IRS data, the University of Michigan's General Social Survey, and surveys conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University."

[hr]

It seems that Mr. Brook's data is soft. There is a diffence, and very likely a substantial difference at that, betwen what people SAY they give to charity, and what people ACTUALLY DO give to charity. Particularly, when they're saying it on an IRS form, and the more they give, the less their taxes will be.

So, from the data given, I could just as easily conclude that, not only do religious people give about the same as non-religious people, but religious people are more likely to lie about what they give. So, religious people are more likely to cheat on their taxes, and thus, make the non-religious (in other words, the honest) people pay proportionaly more for the expenses incurred in running our government.

Now, that conclusion above is not warrented. That conclusion is merely the conclusion of someone bending the facts to suit their own political agenda. It has nothing to do with truth, it has only to do with someone wanting to way "see, I told you so!"

Likewise, Mr. Brook's conclusions are of the very same nature.

Neither my conclusion above (which by the way, is not really the way I think -- I just put it there for illustration), nor Mr. Brook's have anything to do with reality.